


Legacy

by orphan_account



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bars and Pubs, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daddy Issues, Denial of Feelings, Dream Sex, Dreamwalking, Empathy, F/M, Far Future, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, I Am Groot, Immortality, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Purring, Sex Pollen, Star-crossed, Stranded, Touch-Starved, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-04 18:32:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11560947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After Peter uses his newly discovered Celestial powers to heal Rocket, they discover that the changes go deeper than they intended. Will a change in their relationship follow?





	1. Uncut

**Author's Note:**

> Since I can't seem to stop myself from getting ideas for mature Peter/Rocket stories, I figured I might as well cave and start writing and sharing them. 
> 
> All of these will be set in the same post-Vol. 2 AU timeline as "Keep the Light On," in which Peter discovers that he did inherit a legacy from Ego, allowing him to use the Light to rejuvenate Rocket and transform his cybernetics to organic matter (although he's unaware at the time of the full effects, or even that it will work to save Rocket from illness). 
> 
> Each chapter will be a one-shot story, not necessarily in chronological order, with varying levels of sexual content. This one takes place shortly after Rocket is healed and changed, before he and Peter realize they've both become immortal, and it's straight-up porn (with a little plot).

They had spent the last hour going over everything that had changed when Peter touched Rocket with the Light, and everything it could mean. So far, all of it seemed wonderfully positive: he was back to the prime of his life, healthy and strong, freed from the cybernetics that had caused him so much discomfort throughout his life.

But with all that established, he was still lingering in Peter’s room, looking faintly unsettled.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Peter realized out loud.

Rocket nodded warily and scratched the back of his head. “Y’know I used to be...cut.”

It took a second for the euphemism to register; Peter did know, but it wasn’t a subject that came up much. “Yeah?” Then the rest of it registered. “Wait, _used to_ be?”

“Yuh huh. That got healed too.” His face scrunched up a little. “And the rest o’ what I got goin’ on down there kinda changed. Not sure why, but best guess is that it adjusted to the body I got now, since it was a different kinda thing back when they took my nads.”

“Oh. Man. You mean like your junk is more humanoid now?”

Rocket exhaled in frustration. “That’s what I wanna know. I ain’t got much to go on. Can I take a look at yours?”

Two completely opposite reactions hit Peter so quickly that he didn’t know which one had come first: _Yeah, of course, anything to help a friend,_ or _Absolutely not, too weird, it would affect our friendship._ The especially confusing part was that both seemed to have the same sentiment hiding behind them, in the back of his mind where he could pretend he didn’t hear it: _That sounds like so much fun!_

He froze, unable to find a reasonable compromise or solution, and Rocket rolled his eyes. “Is this gonna be a big deal? Do I have to ask Drax?”

There was no doubt that Drax would whip out his penis for a viewing upon request, and also no chance that he would take it as weird or let it change his relationship with Rocket in the slightest. But Drax didn’t know the whole story, Drax hadn’t been the one to inadvertently change Rocket’s biology, and anyway, Rocket had come to Peter first, so his preference was clear. “No, it’s fine,” said Peter, sitting down on the bed and unzipping his fly. “Come check it out.”

Rocket jumped up beside him, seating himself about as close to Peter’s hip as he could get without touching. Peter instantly felt ridiculous, sitting here on his bed with his cock out and no plans to do anything with it. He started to say something sarcastic, but before it reached his lips, Rocket had leaned over Peter’s thigh to get his nose down between his legs. The tickling of his spread-out whiskers was bad enough, but he was sniffing _so close…_

Peter let out a yelp and scooted backward. “Shit, dude, you have to ask before you do something like that! Geez, you really don’t know anything about dicks.” He tried to settle down again, but left his hand cupped protectively to guard against Rocket, although the raccoon had now backed off and was giving him a bemused expression. “It’s sensitive, okay? Too much stimulation and I’ll, you know…”

“What? Do the thing? I wanna see that. How’s it work?”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

Rocket lay down, resting his chin on Peter’s bare thigh and looking up at him innocently. It was cute. Peter knew better than to say so, of course, but sometimes he wondered if Rocket knew exactly how cute he was and used it to his own shameless advantage. “You seriously want to sit here and watch me jack off?”

“For science, Quill,” Rocket said brightly, but there was no mistaking the mischievous gleam in his eyes.

Peter let out a sigh that was half a laugh, sat up, and pulled his shirt off, dropping it beside the bed. His pants and boxers came off the rest of the way too, followed by his socks, while Rocket watched the whole show with real or feigned academic interest. Finally, Peter resettled on his back, cock in hand, wrestling with a thought that had just occurred to him: was it okay to pet Rocket while he was doing this?

_What the hell,_ he thought, and lay a hand on his friend’s head as he began stroking himself. Instead of biting or yelling at him, Rocket pressed against his side. It was a nice feeling, although it didn’t seem fair that Peter was the one who was naked while Rocket was hiding all that cozy soft fur under a jumpsuit. 

Having gotten this far, Peter closed his eyes, prepared to enjoy this for whatever the hell it was. He had just gotten fully hard when Rocket shifted under his hand, and then there was the thrilling sensation of a touch on his cock that didn’t come from himself.

“Whaaat are you _doing?_ ” Peter mumbled, cracking one eye open. Rocket had both hands moving up and down his length, making up for their small size with surprisingly deft motions. 

“Oh yeah, you wanted me to ask first, huh?” The touching didn’t stop. “Mind if I do this? Okay, good.” 

Now there was a delicately damp tongue exploring the same paths as the two hands. Peter cursed and then repeated it four times. His own right hand had stilled, letting Rocket take over, but his left was clutching at Rocket’s nape in a way that was likely to get him in trouble. “Don’t,” he panted. “Rock -- don’t --”

Rocket paused. “What?”

“Don’t stop now for the love of ohhhhh _yeah!_ ” In the middle of the sentence, Rocket had somehow gotten his entire mouth around his cock. Peter had no idea how he was keeping his sharp teeth out of it so successfully, but it felt amazing. His tongue was swirling all around the head, darting into the hole, and his hands were still busy caressing at the base. Most of his body was now sprawled across Peter’s belly to give him better access, and Peter had stopped worrying about where to touch him. He rubbed down his head and neck, ran his tail through his hand, and ventured under the hems of the jumpsuit with just his fingertips. “You crazy fucking genius,” he hissed. 

A new vibration suggested Rocket was laughing, which only intensified everything. Peter was well on his way to naming this the best blowjob he had ever received, and couldn’t decide if the strangest part of that was that it was coming from an anthropomorphic raccoon, or that it was coming from a coarse and violent gunslinger whom he was used to seeing as his best friend. So much for his reluctance to show Rocket his genitals. If this was going to affect their friendship, now he could only hope that it would be in a way that meant more of this in the future.

At the moment, though, he had a more pressing concern. He was going to come, and between Rocket’s small size and his inexperience, there was a real danger of choking him. If he tried to forcibly pull him away, though, he might awaken his contrary spirit, and then there was a real danger of getting his dick bitten off.

There was no time to try to calm himself down enough to approach it rationally. “Rocket, get off!” he gasped, alarmed by the commanding tone he heard in his own voice but unable to control it. To his surprise, Rocket didn’t hesitate for a second before obeying. Peter momentarily lost track of him as he ejaculated onto his own chest, groaning in relief and pleasure. 

“How did you even know how to do that?” he asked after a long luxurious moment of lying motionless. The mattress dipped with Rocket’s weight returning to his side, and he lifted an arm to put around him without opening his eyes. He could tell that Rocket was sniffing again, although this time he didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to touch or taste.

“What, you think I never watched a porno?” He didn’t react badly to Peter’s hand on his back, but he didn’t stay within reach for long, either, which was a disappointment. 

Peter didn’t answer, because if had ever thought about it, then yes, he would have assumed that Rocket had never bothered with any porn. This new insight was oddly tragic. What use would a neutered cyborg, one of a kind, have for sexual stimulation videos? Curiosity must have compelled him. He wanted to know what he was missing. He always acted like he didn’t care about whatever counted as a normal life for the galaxy’s standard sentient races, but he must have been painfully conscious of what they had that he lacked.

But he wasn’t lacking sexuality anymore. Was this his chance to reclaim some of the happiness his makers had denied him?

“You make a hell of a mess,” Rocket observed from somewhere near the foot of the bed.

Peter made a sound of agreement and opened his eyes to search the floor for his shirt. He found his boxers, too, and when he was done wiping himself down with the shirt, he pulled them on and reached for his pants.

Rocket was washing his face and hands like he did after eating, but he paused to watch. Peter smirked and said, “I think you got a close enough look already,” and was rewarded by Rocket ducking his head bashfully. If only it were possible to see him blush.

Peter pulled back to lean against the headboard, then patted the pillow next to him. “Okay. Let’s see what you got.”

“Huh?” Rocket sounded genuinely surprised.

“Come on, I showed you mine.” He kept his voice casual, knowing that this sensitive topic could scare Rocket away if he approached it badly, but he was determined now to show him something he could enjoy about the changes to his body. “For science. Right?”

Slowly, Rocket crawled up the bed and leaned back against the pillow beside Peter, but he didn’t make any move to undress. “I didn’t come in here for a medical exam,” he warned.

“Good, ‘cause I don’t do those. But I do have a lot of experience with having a dick and balls.” He was sure that Rocket’s reluctance was some kind of shame, and that there would never be a better time to defeat it. “Hey. You know male Dervanians have two penises and the second one is forked?” He lowered his pitch and raised an eyebrow. “Want to ask me how I know that?”

That seemed to do the trick; Rocket snorted and unhooked some hidden tabs on the side of his suit. The front fell open from his neck to crotch, and he squirmed back to let the straps fall down his arms, but didn’t remove it completely.

At first glance, there was nothing new between Rocket’s legs, but he reached down and fondled awkwardly, and it emerged from a sheath hidden by his fur. Peter propped himself on an elbow and leaned close to get a better look, very aware that Rocket had a suspicious eye on his every movement. Naturally, Peter never would have laughed or said anything demeaning, but he was glad he wouldn’t have to lie -- he liked Rocket’s member right away. It was pink and hairless, fairly humanoid, and a little large in proportion to his body, though still a far cry from the size of Peter’s. 

“Not bad,” said Peter. He met Rocket’s eyes and found them still wary, but continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “Has it been hurting you or anything?”

Rocket shook his head.

“Are you pissing any differently?”

“No. Enough with the questions, it’s fine.”

“Okay.” Peter let his hand hover a few inches above, making his intentions clear when he asked, “May I?”

It didn’t take Rocket too long to respond with a nod. He was braced on his elbows in a pose that looked a little too rigid to be comfortable, but his eyes went wide and he let out a little gasp as Peter gently took his cock in one hand and began to massage it.

They were both silent for a long stretch. Peter pressed his cheek to Rocket’s head to remind him that this wasn’t strictly about sex. He kept his motions simple and repetitive, letting Rocket get used to the idea of it as well as the sensation, and Rocket’s expression finally showed more wonder than skepticism. When he spoke, his voice was small and devoid of all of the reckless swagger he tried so hard to cultivate. “Why does this feel good?”

It was an earnest question, and Peter answered as such. “Because I’m a fucking stud,” he said in a serious tone, increasing the pressure of his caresses, “and I know how to treat my favorite person.”

Rocket seemed to relax a little at that, and Peter felt moved to lower his face down to replace his hand, but before his lips had made contact, Rocket jerked and scrambled backward with a squeal of dismay.

Peter winced. “Too fast?”

“I didn’t know you were gonna put your mouth on it, you prevert! That’s disgusting!!”

“ _What?_ You just did this for me like a minute ago, how is it disgusting _now?_ ”

Rocket was trying to hold his open jumpsuit together to cover himself, but he was still hard, and couldn’t seem to get out of his own way. His ears were flicking rapidly and his tail seemed bushier than usual, but Peter sensed more embarrassment than anger. Embarrassment and shame. “I did that ‘cause I wanted to,” he snapped in response. “It’s different. Yours is norm-- I just felt like it, okay? I wasn’t tryin’ ta get anything outta you.”

Peter exhaled. Nothing could ever be easy when Rocket was involved, least of all convincing him he was wanted. “Yours is normal too,” he stated. “It’s right for your body, so it’s normal. And it’s hot. _You’re_ hot.” He put his hand under Rocket’s chin, risking his wrath to place a kiss on his head, and succeeding. “Let’s face it, if I’m a pervert, it started long before I met you. Now, I’m having a great time, and you look delicious, and if you’ve had enough I can leave you alone, but I really hope you make my day and let me suck you off. What do you say?”

The speech seemed to have gone some way toward pacifying Rocket, who had stopped messing with his clothes and was looking uncertainly between his erection and Peter’s face, but all he said was, “I don’t know what to do.”

It was hard to believe that this self-deprecating virgin was the same person who had just been teasing him so shamelessly. Peter kept his voice mild: “You don’t have to do anything. Just lay back and enjoy it, I’ll take care of the rest.” He paused, then remembered to add, “And tell me if it doesn’t feel good. You don’t have to say why, just tell me and I’ll stop.”

Rocket’s sound of assent was quiet, but clear, and he followed it by taking the jumpsuit off entirely, at last, and reclining against the pillow without the hunted posture he’d had at first. Peter kissed his face a few more times before moving down his belly and sweeping his tongue up his cock. Rocket shivered, and Peter made himself slow down again. It was exciting to witness Rocket’s first experience with arousal, but this was also bound to be frightening in a way. He had to be a reassuring presence, not just give good head.

When he thought they were both ready for it, he opened his mouth and fully enveloped Rocket’s cock. Just as he had expected, it was a perfect fit, allowing him to take it in deeply and explore all the surface area with his tongue. Rocket started moaning almost instantly, little cries too animalistic to be voluntary, and Peter reached up blindly to comfort him. He found his hand and placed it on his own head, and Rocket understood instinctively and grabbed a handful of hair, then did the same with the other hand, yanking in rhythm with his hard breaths.

Peter slipped a hand under his tail and found his balls, that subtle new addition, and toyed with them as he sucked. Rocket seemed to like that, but then, Rocket seemed extremely enthused about everything he was doing. Peter looked up, as much as moving his eyes without his head would allow, and caught a glimpse of bared white teeth and bristling whiskers. He closed his eyes. He had promised he would take care of everything, and to make good on that he had to devote his full attention to the job at hand.

He gripped Rocket’s hips with both hands, ready to steady his squirming when he increased his suction. He had him engulfed to the root, his face pressed against his fur, and he was listening carefully to Rocket’s breath, matching its increasing speed with his mouth’s motion. His strategy went off without a hitch: Rocket was coming down his throat and he was swallowing before Rocket even knew what was happening. _Victory,_ thought Peter, giving Rocket’s softening cock a final swab with his tongue. He had given him no time to feel ashamed about where his semen was going.

When he returned his head to his pillow, wiping his face with a corner of bedsheet, Rocket was staring at him again. “I didn’t know you could eat that.”

Peter laughed. “Seriously? I thought you’d watched porn.”

“Is everything they do in those real?” Rocket sounded incredulous, but ready to believe.

“Uh...okay, good point. Never mind that. How did you like it?”

Something was wrong. Rocket was reaching for his jumpsuit, and as much as Peter wanted to know how he got his tail through that thing when he put it on, he didn’t want Rocket’s body covered up just yet. He especially didn’t want him getting ready to leave.

“Was good,” said Rocket. Apparently his legs went in first, then he pulled his tail through the hole with his hand. His voice was distant. “I liked it.”

“Then where are you going?” Peter sat up, holding an arm out to beckon him back.

Rocket fastened the final strap on the suit. “It’s too early to sleep. Thanks for the demonstration.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, man?” He hadn’t meant to sound so angry, but this truly hurt. “The first time you ever decide to thank me for anything, it’s _this_?”

For a few seconds, their eyes met, and Rocket stood still. His expression was almost neutral, but there was a world of old suffering in his eyes, as if he was holding back the sincerely helpless question, _What do you want from me?_

Rocket’s gaze broke first, and he shook his head as if to clear it. “Yeah. Thanks. See you tomorrow, Quill.”


	2. Animal Magnetism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rocket is an obnoxious, pushy, clueless, thieving, complicated, vulnerable, needy, damaged, _sexy_ raccoon. And he just showed up in Peter's bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the way I left the first chapter, it only seemed right that the next one should follow it directly. Stuff gets addressed, and the boys still got their issues, but they've got a good shot at making each other happy.

Peter had been through some very awkward mornings-after in his time, and he had a strategy for dealing with everything from a pouty face to a knife attack. He did not, however, have any experience with being the one who was brushed off after a spontaneous (and _hot_ ) hook-up in his own bunk with his best bud. He especially didn’t know how to proceed when they lived in the same close quarters, along with four other roommates who weren’t exactly pros at minding their own business. There was no avoiding Rocket, and Peter couldn’t remember how to act normally around him.

The worst part was that Rocket _was_ acting normally. He wasn’t even pretending that nothing had happened, just acting like it wasn’t unusual or important enough to talk about. Whenever Peter got him alone and brought it up, he made jokes or asked if there was some kind of problem, sounding genuinely confused but not at all concerned. It was too hard to articulate exactly what the problem was, so Peter decided to give it up before the rest of the crew started asking questions. 

He just had to forget about it, that was all. Rocket’s friendship was worth keeping for its own sake, even if Peter would never understand what had gone wrong with their chance to take it to a new place. As weeks went by, he stopped referencing it and stopped hoping.

So he was taken off-guard one morning when he was woken up by Rocket sitting on his bed behind him, tapping repeatedly on his arm. “Quill. Quill. Get up.”

Imagining various space travel or battle-related emergencies, Peter shifted and cracked one eyelid. “What?”

“I want you to suck my dick again.”

Peter responded with a string of his favorite curses, rolled back over, and pulled the blanket over his head. 

Immediately, Rocket’s hand was back on his arm, shaking him in a very annoying manner. “Come on. I’ll do you too. You can go back to sleep after.”

“No,” said Peter, opening a gap in the blanket just wide enough for his face. “I’m not your personal lovebot. Leave me alone.”

Rocket took on a persuasive tone. “I’ll give you money.”

“ _Also_ not your _hooker,_ ” Peter growled. This was getting ridiculous. Well, no. It had already been ridiculous when it started.

“Look, I didn’t wanna go here, but I stole your faceguard and I won’t give it back ‘til you blow me.”

Peter threw back the blanket and reached for the bedside table, feeling around for the attachment that he took off and left there at night. Its absence was especially aggravating because Rocket was the one who had made it for him, crafting it carefully and suggesting improvements after the old one was broken, and that had gained it some sentimental value in addition to its utility and monetary worth. That Rocket would take it back and hold it hostage seemed like a low blow.

Unwilling to explain that to Rocket at the moment, Peter hauled himself out of bed and stomped into the captain’s quarters bathroom to put a locked door between them, not looking back. He still intended to go back to sleep, but he went through his full morning routine anyway, just to kill some time. The thought that Rocket might actually take the hint and go away gave him some regret, but if he caved now, he might as well sign an agreement to dance to Rocket’s tune forever.

When he came out, Rocket was still sitting at the foot of the bed. Neither of them spoke as Peter climbed back under the covers and turned on his side with his back to Rocket. It took barely a second for Peter to realize that he was no longer sleepy at all and that there was no chance he would fall back asleep now, but he kept his eyes closed to fake it. 

Finally he felt Rocket moving, but it was only to lean over his waist and ask, all innocence, “How ‘bout now?”

Peter was officially fed up. “Knock it off!” he ordered at a near-shout, giving Rocket a shove with his knee through the blanket at the same time. He dropped his head back to the pillow, but with this line crossed, he knew things were only going to get more complicated from here.

But Rocket didn’t start yelling back at him, he didn’t leave the bed, and Peter didn’t feel his touch, either. He gave it a moment and then sat up again. “Rocket?”

Rocket was lying on his back, bending in a slight curve, an unusual position for him that emphasized his elongated body. His head was thrown back on the mattress, and he was peeking through his fingers and had his ears flattened against his skull. Peter had no idea of how to interpret this, but he had to admit, he liked the view. It made him think of how flexible and taut Rocket’s muscles were under that jumpsuit and fur, and how good it would feel to stroke him all over. Peter swallowed. “Are you okay? What are you doing?”

“Nothin’.” In an instant Rocket was sitting up again, making nervous adjustments to his clothing. “I’ll go.” He moved to climb across Peter’s feet, toward the door.

Peter reached out and touched his shoulder to stop him. “Wait. What was that? What just happened?”

Rocket gave his head a rapid shake. “I can’t help it, Quill, I just...it’s an instinct thing, okay? I heard your voice get serious and it made me feel like I had to, y’know, roll over. I’ll get outta here, just don’t make a thing about it.”

“You mean...roll over, like, ‘roll over and show your belly’?” There was no verbal response, but Peter noted a tiny, almost incidental nod. Incredulous, he continued, “Rocket...do you feel submissive toward me?”

The question seemed to hit so hard that Peter wished he hadn’t asked. Rocket was looking down and away from him, rubbing his hands together as he spoke: “Sorta. I don’t really get what’s goin’ on with me. I been through a lot of changes already, I guess I got used to dealin’ with body upgrades, much as anyone can. But the brain stuff, that’s harder. I got hormones now, okay, they make me wanna fuck, okay, makes sense. Then you and me start doin’ it and...it ain’t just hormones. Or they do some mental shit I never knew about. I mean, I never wanted to submit to _no one._ I still don’t. Except I do.”

Peter rubbed a hand on his forehead, trying to work it out. “Is this why I’ve been getting a proverbial cold shower from you ever since we hooked up?”

“So far I only get horny if I get touched in the right place, on purpose. If I don’t, then I get to keep my head.” He shrugged. “I was ready to try it again today, though. Why’d you get all upset over it?”

“Because I tried hard to make you happy, and you just wanted to use me for sex. You hurt my feelings.”

Rocket snorted. “I hurt your feelings all the time. You don’t mind.”

Peter gritted his teeth. “I don’t mind when you mouth off and insult me with every word in your vocabulary because I know you don’t mean it. I do mind when you share this special experience with me and then act like I’m the weird one for thinking it was special.”

“I thought that’s how it’s done,” said Rocket quietly. It sounded like it was sincere, but at the same time a challenge. It did hit a little too close to home. Up until now, Rocket’s primary example of sexual relationships had probably been Peter himself.

“Dude, you busted into my room and woke me up demanding a blowjob,” Peter retorted. “I might have a history, but if I’m trying to get a girl into bed I at least buy her a drink and tell her she looks nice.”

Rocket’s brow furrowed as if he was giving that some serious contemplation. Finally he looked up and offered, “I got a couple bottles stashed in my bunk, but I don’t really care what you look like.”

Peter let out a long-suffering sigh. A bottle of whatever liquid insanity Rocket was hiding was beginning to sound like a good way to start the day. Instead of endorsing the idea, though, he scooted a little closer to Rocket and started petting him. “Look,” he said in the kindest tone he could muster, “if you want to try again I can walk you through it. Just promise me you’ll listen and you won’t get mad if I tell you to do something differently.”

“You mean you’ll do it? You’ll suck me off?” asked Rocket, perking up.

“I mean maybe. This kind of thing is always a gamble, alright? See if you can win me over.” He took his hand off Rocket’s neck and folded it with the other on his lap. Rocket was waiting attentively, so he cleared his throat and said, “Okay. First, give me a compliment.”

Rocket looked pained. “Aw, man, really?” At Peter’s nod, he scratched his head reflectively and then said, “You go first. I need an example.”

“No. You’re seducing me. Come on man, you can do it. Just say something nice about me. Doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s true.”

“Okay, okay. You’re not gonna laugh?”

Peter shot him a look. “Don’t be stupid. Of course not.”

Rocket very nearly smiled, but he still sounded bashful. “...I like the way you smell.”

Having just learned that Rocket wasn’t interested in his looks, Peter found something oddly gratifying about this choice of compliment. Sure, physical qualities weren’t the most important thing, but his body had always been an asset in this game, and he had never been with someone who didn’t admire it. It made sense that Rocket wouldn’t be turned on by visual cues, and Peter would have accepted it regardless, but it helped to know that there was another way that Rocket found him attractive. “That’s kind of neat,” he replied. “Thanks.”

“I noticed it way back in the Kyln. Big pile o’ criminals lyin’ on the floor and only one of ‘em didn’t stink. Mighta kept me from killin’ you a couple times.”

“Lucky me,” Peter grinned. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to get closer to Rocket’s level. “I know I don’t have much of a nose, but you smell good too. And I like how soft your fur is since you got the healing. And when you did that submissive pose, it was like, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Rocket looked surprised by every item on that list, but at the last one he visibly started, then narrowed his eyes. Peter held up his hands in supplication. “Relax, I’m not gonna take advantage. I’m just saying, it was hot. I’ve got instincts too, you know. I can’t help that.”

“Yeah, alright,” said Rocket after another moment’s hesitation. “So...that was Step One?”

“Pretty much. We’re doing good here. Next thing is you touch me.”

With an expression of severe confusion, Rocket reached out and tapped his arm, as if they were playing tag. Peter had half expected that, so he clarified, “No, just do it your own way. It doesn’t have to be sexual yet. However you feel like touching is fine, but nothing painful.” He raised a suggestive eyebrow and smirked. “Yet.”

It was interesting to see the way Rocket was putting such consideration into these instructions. His eyes swept over Peter’s body, and Peter realized for the first time that he was taking in his scent, too. Then he ducked his head under Peter’s arm, maneuvering himself into the crook of his elbow and leaning on his chest. 

Peter’s heart swelled. He wrapped both of his arms around Rocket, pulled him into his lap, and pressed their foreheads together, and Rocket responded by nuzzling his neck. It was the side of him that nobody ever saw in public, the side that Peter had taken on faith before he had ever been presented with evidence that it was there.

“See,” Peter murmured, rubbing his temple against Rocket’s ear, “now I _want_ to suck your dick. No bribes, no blackmail, all you had to do was give me a little sugar and you got me wrapped around your finger.”

Rocket leaned back enough to show him a lopsided smile. “What now?”

“Well, this is usually where humans would start kissing, but with the shape of your mouth I’m not sure--” Before he could finish, Rocket licked his face, right across his lips. Peter stopped with his mouth still half open, and Rocket did it again, this time delving deeper and engaging Peter’s tongue. 

“Holy shit,” said Peter breathlessly as they broke apart. “I stand corrected.” He pulled his feet up onto the bed, pushed back against his pile of pillows, and without another second’s pause pressed their faces back together, cupping one hand around Rocket’s head and nudging his jaws open wider to explore the inside of his mouth. It was intoxicating, from the points of Rocket’s sharp teeth grazing Peter’s cheek, to his agile and ravenous tongue. His breath was hot but surprisingly fragrant, and his passion seemed to come from a place that knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it, despite the certainty that he had never touched anyone like this before.

Peter’s fingers were fumbling blindly all over Rocket’s garment, searching for fastenings and finding none. “How do you get this thing off?” he demanded. “Geez, I thought unhooking bras was hard…”

Rocket snickered and released tabs at three different places, one-handed, and the jumpsuit split and slid down from his shoulders. Peter pulled it off his tail while he was kicking it off his legs, and then finally he was free and naked and poised on Peter’s chest, stroking a semi and panting. “C’mere,” said Peter. “Put your knee here. I’ll hold you like this. No, but I need my other hand free. There. Right there. Just like that. Mmmmm.”

When his cock found its way in, Rocket let out a quarter-note cry, sharp and plaintive, and grabbed Peter’s hair with both hands. Peter kept him in a secure embrace and concentrated on getting to know his body: the humanoid proportions merging elegantly with the bestial features, the sleek fur no longer interrupted by metal hardware, and the shape of his cock, deep in Peter’s mouth where his tongue could travel along its contours and learn all of its secrets. 

Peter tried swallowing, taking utmost care not only for Rocket’s sake but for his own. He wasn’t completely new at sucking dick, but it hadn’t been something he had ever actively sought out, so he was teaching himself along the way. He was beginning to reevaluate his former preferences. Rocket was so into this that his enjoyment could only rub off, and something about it just felt so _good._ He was reluctant to move even one hand from Rocket’s body, but the little groans and hisses coming from above were such a turn-on that his own dick needed some attention. He snaked a hand into his boxers, simultaneously renewing the vigor in his oral rhythm.

The first time they had done this, Rocket had kept silent and very still as Peter led the way. Now Peter could hear him whispering “ _Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!_ ”, under his breath and probably unconsciously, in time with the tentative thrusts of his hips and tugs at Peter’s hair. It occurred to Peter that this was just the beginning, and as Rocket grew in confidence he would probably start saying all kinds of crazy shit and discovering kinks that neither of them knew they had. The thought was delightful. He hummed his pleasure into Rocket’s cock and heard him gasp in response.

All of a sudden Rocket pulled out, arching his midriff over Peter’s face. Peter opened his eyes to see why, then closed them again against a hot spurt of cum, then another and another. He lowered Rocket down to his chest, moving slowly, enjoying the way he had gone limp in his arms. “Now,” said Peter as he lay back on the pillows, eyes still closed, “you tell me how good that was. Lavish praise optional.”

Rocket’s body shook with internal laughter. “I ain’t gonna let your head get any bigger than it is already. It was good, though. Really good.”

Peter nodded, satisfied, and settled Rocket by his side on the pillows so he could take his shirt off and wipe his face with it. “I don’t mind swallowing, you know.”

“I know. I just wanted to see how it looked all over your face.”

“You’re such an asshole.” He dropped the shirt on the floor, grinning. “Hey, don’t get too cozy there. I’m not done with you yet.”

Rocket turned to look at Peter’s cock, as if just noticing that it was erect and poking out of his boxers. He moved toward it, but Peter drew him back with one hand, using the other to remove his underwear. “Kiss me again,” he urged him.

Rocket was all too willing to comply, and his mouth was just as sweet as the first time. Peter ran his hand down the raccoon’s body over and over again, first ending at his thigh, then his tail, then under his tail, then his hand, gripping it tight before going back to caressing his neck. His other hand stayed working his own cock, with no contact from Rocket aside from the occasional feathery touch of his animated tail, but the entanglement of their tongues was enough to bring Peter to the edge in just moments. He deepened the kiss, hungry enough to ignore the fang scraping across his face, and then Rocket shocked him with a set of claws digging into his nipple and he was coming hard, moaning into Rocket’s ruff, hugging him tightly to his chest.

After he had relaxed his hold enough to allow Rocket some movement, he felt a tickling on his face, and from the corner of his eye he watched his sideburns and hairline being groomed with that dexterous pink tongue. He smiled and let it happen, sensing that this was in the same sensitive category as the “roll over and show your belly” reaction, but he didn’t stop petting, just slowed it down. 

Rocket moved back for a moment to scratch and shake, and then he turned his attention to the semen cooling on Peter’s stomach. His tongue darted out to sample it, and he gave it a second’s thought and then wrinkled his nose and announced, “I don’t like it.”

“I’m offended,” said Peter dryly.

It was subtle, but he was sure that Rocket flinched. Certainly he snapped to attention. “Really?”

“No,” Peter informed him, imbuing the word with all the comic emphasis he could. “Not really. You know me better than that, moron.” He leaned over to grab the dirty shirt back from the floor and found enough dry parts to clean himself off again. Then he tossed it away and opened up his arms for Rocket, and thankfully, this time, Rocket entered the embrace willingly and curled up at his side. 

Peter kissed his head. “I’m not always gonna know what will set off your...mental shit,” he warned softly. “I want you to tell me if you can, but I’m guessing maybe you won’t know either. Can we just deal with that as it comes, do you think?”

Rocket stayed silent for long enough that Peter wondered if he was nodding off, but when he looked down, Rocket’s eyes were open. “See, I don’t...I don’t even know if I don’t want you to set it off. But if you do, an’ I start actin’ like I’m some kinda animal waitin’ to get put in my place…”

“Hey. What have we learned? _Everyone_ acts like an animal when it comes to sex.” He scratched behind Rocket’s ears, almost automatically. “Whatever happens in bed is just for in bed, okay? You can do whatever you feel like doing, and I won’t use it against you, and I won’t tell anyone about it, and I won’t expect any of the same rules to apply any other time.”

Rocket’s body seemed to melt as he relaxed, but then he lifted his head and asked with earnest curiosity, “Don’tcha ever wonder if there’s somethin’ wrong with you? Puttin’ all this effort into makin’ me feel good?”

Peter chuckled. “It’s not like I’m not getting anything out of it.”

“Yeah, you love playin’ guru, huh?” He yawned, ending it with a sleepy smile that showed his misunderstanding was intentional. “On that note, what’s the next step, o wise one?”

“Well, you said I could go back to sleep after I sucked you off, so…”

“So?”

“So stay here and sleep with me. Obviously.”

Rocket slipped out of his arm, and Peter jerked in his dismay over it happening again, but by the time he had a protest forming on his lips, Rocket was back, pulling the blanket over both of them. “Happy?” he said, still using his teasing voice.

Peter answered with his serious voice: “Very.” Rocket was close to him, naked fur comfortably aligned with naked skin, and they would both be drifting off to sleep soon. “You better give back that faceguard,” was the last thing he remembered saying. “I got that from someone I care about.”


	3. The Prisoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spending the night on an unfamiliar planet after a successful mission, Peter finds himself fighting for his life - against Rocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to another chapter of "Legacy", AKA "Tick Tick Splat" thanks to a comment from Rocket_in_My_Pocket that I can't scrub out of my mind. 
> 
> That said, this is a major change in gears, and it doesn't contain a sex scene. Sorry. What it contains instead includes extreme Rocket whump, four other Guardians, a plot, trippy mental symbolism, veiled declarations of love, a big gun, dreamwalking, and painful fuzzy adorableness, seriously you guys are gonna cry your eyes out. Oh, and it's longer than the others!
> 
> It begins a few months after the previous chapter.

A shaft of moonlight shone down through the overhead windows in the bungalow, casting a spotlight on Peter tugging on a pair of flannel pants. The windows were paneless, as they were in every hut in the village, and the summer breeze had struck as he was cooling down after working up a good sweat on the job and then another in bed. If he could have planned a perfect day, he reflected, it would have gone a lot like this: taking out a pack of invasive extraplanetary monsters, being richly rewarded for it _and_ hailed as heroes, feasting, dancing drunkenly with Gamora, and then turning in and making love to Rocket.

The rest of the team were all sharing a second, larger hut, but the locals had thought that the team leader ought to have his own accommodations, and the other Guardians grudgingly agreed that it would be rude to question their customs. This entire planet was low-tech and seemed to retain some tribal values, which might not have affected anything, but it was easier for Peter to sneak Rocket into his bed rather than probe their hosts for signs on how they would feel about it if they knew. 

He crept back to the bed and found Rocket fast asleep, but he stirred and squirmed unconsciously closer when Peter got under the covers. Peter put an arm around him and closed his eyes, fully contented.

There was no warning whatsoever. Rocket’s feet kicked out, raking Peter’s chest with his claws and propelling himself into a leap off the bed. Peter let out a startled cry, but the sound of it was swallowed by Rocket’s panicked shrieking, and Peter could see just enough through the darkness to realize that he was standing up with the laser cannon he had used earlier that day to dispatch an elephant-sized beast. The only thing to do was roll off the other side of the bed and take cover. “Rocket! It’s me! For God’s sake, wake up! ROCKET!” 

He might as well have not even spoken. Rocket yelled and fired, blasting a huge hole through the headboard and into the wall. If he hadn’t moved, Peter realized with cold clarity, he would be in pieces now, but the more relevant takeaway was that Rocket wasn’t properly aiming, or he would have compensated and made the shot. They were going to need to talk about what kinds of weapons Rocket could keep by the bed at night. A blaster pistol would be much easier to escape in this scenario.

Rocket’s vacant eyes turned toward the hole as if wondering how it had gotten there, and Peter saw his opening and sprinted across the room. He stooped and caught Rocket’s arm just as Drax was kicking in the door, and the new commotion and sudden light in the room caused another wave of panic and a struggle to ensue, but the cannon thudded to the floor before Rocket could renew his grip on it.

Peter kicked it away and dropped to one knee. Gamora and Drax, finding no enemies in the room, were asking about what was going on, making it difficult to keep his focus on Rocket while trying to get them to back off. “It’s okay,” he kept repeating, urgently but gently. “Rocket, you’re safe, it’s just us in here, please…” It wasn’t working. Rocket was twisting and flailing, showing no sign that he could hear or see or even smell Peter.

It was time for desperate measures. Peter abandoned his reassuring tones and ordered sharply, “Stand still! Now! Fucking _look at me!_ ”

As he had both hoped and feared, Rocket froze and met his eyes as if he were under compulsion. Slowly, comprehension set in. “Peter?” he whispered.

Before answering, Peter heaved a deep sigh of relief. “Yeah man. You back? You here with me?”

Gamora knelt next to Peter, and he could sense Drax standing just behind him. Rocket looked at each of them, then at the gun on the floor, and began to tremble. “I...I…”

“We’re all okay,” Peter informed him. “I know what you’re thinking, but you didn’t hurt anyone so just chill.” 

Rocket stared, but not at his face. Gamora was gaping at him too. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

Peter glanced down at his bare chest and cursed. Rocket’s hind claws weren’t as sharp as the ones on his hands, but he had lashed out hard, and fine red stripes were now adorning Peter’s skin. “Forget about that,” he said impatiently. “Gamora, we’re gonna have the whole village at the door any second, can you figure out something to tell them?”

She nodded and stood up as Peter extended a hand to Rocket. He wanted to wrap him in a hug, but the way Rocket was shrinking away from his touch made it feel like he was trying to violate him rather than comfort him. “Please, just calm down. We’ll go sleep on the ship. It’s not that far.”

The only change was that tears were pooling in Rocket’s eyes. Every time he looked at Peter, he would look away again quickly, as if the sight pained him. He sank into a crouch, then put his palms to the floor and bent his head, quivering. 

“You should take him away from here,” said Drax gravely. 

Peter hated the idea of carrying him out against his will, but it would be no better to let the villagers see him like this. He wasn’t even clothed -- he generally slept naked, now that he had no scarification to hide, but never appeared in his bare fur around strangers. There had to be some way to get him through his breakdown before the situation got any worse. “Where’s Groot?” Peter asked Drax.

“We made him stay behind with Mantis.”

“Get him.” He thought for a second, then added, “Get both of them.” 

Rocket shook his head violently and Drax hesitated, but Peter persisted. “Rocket needs Groot. Bring him in here.”

Drax slipped out the door. Peter could hear voices outside, Gamora’s among them, but he couldn’t tell if she had somehow succeeded in discouraging the hosts from coming in to see what had happened to their bungalow. He pulled a shirt on, not bothering to wipe off the drying blood first. “We better print these people a new wall before we get off their planet,” he muttered. “Hey, at least this happened after we got paid.” 

Rocket didn’t react, but when a pattering footfall came to the door, he looked in that direction with wide, helpless eyes. Then, with evident effort, he stood upright and brushed himself off. By the time Groot burst in, Rocket had smoothed his expression over and looked convincingly calm. Groot was currently just slightly shorter than him, which was an awkward stage for them, neither being able to carry the other. Instead of trying to embrace him properly, Groot sat down and threw his arms around Rocket’s waist, and Rocket patted his head, saying, “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s nothin’ you need to worry about.”

Mantis followed him into the hut and approached Peter, scared and confused. “Rocket had a night terror?”

Peter could only nod in response, but Rocket himself looked up from Groot and pleaded, “Mantis. Help me get out of here.”

She didn’t ask any more questions, just knelt by him and placed a hand on his head. Her antennae cast a glowing halo over him, and when she stepped back he took a deep breath and said in a strong voice, “Okay. Let’s go. Where the hell are my clothes?”

In another moment the four of them were walking through the long damp grass that covered the ground between them and the Quadrant. Drax and Gamora made contact to say they would catch up, and Peter fixed his mind on the immediate goal of getting Rocket safely home. 

They boarded without incident, but the initiative that Rocket had received from Mantis must have been wearing off, because he ran away to his bunk without a word to any of them. Peter caught Groot to keep him from following. “Just let him be alone for a little while, buddy.”

“He’s very upset,” said Mantis, wringing her hands.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. 

She gave him a distressed look that said he was misunderstanding. “He’s _very upset!_ ” she repeated. “I don’t know what he’ll do if he’s alone!”

“Oh shit,” breathed Peter. He took off running down the corridor, praying that the door wouldn’t be locked.

It was. “Rocket!” he bellowed. “Let me in!”

The voice of command saved him for the second time that night. The hatch slid open, revealing Rocket curled up in the overstuffed human-sized armchair he had in the corner. There was no bed, and he rarely slept in the hammock anymore, using the room mostly to store his possessions and those he routinely stole from Peter. He didn’t look like he had been about to try anything harmful to himself, but that empty look was back in his eyes, and his voice was fragile. “Please go.”

“I’m sorry,” said Peter, “I can’t. You don’t have to talk, but I’m going to stay in here until I know you’re okay.”

“Until _I’m_ okay?” Rocket snarled. 

“Look, it was scary, but it’s over now. I know you didn’t mean any harm. I think we should stop leaving those bigass weapons by the bed, but--”

Rocket cut him short. “I could kill you without a weapon.”

That was, Peter knew, almost definitely the truth. The image came to mind of sleeping through Rocket’s next panic attack, and Rocket awakening to find his teeth buried in Peter’s throat. “So what are you saying?” he asked quietly. “You don’t want to sleep with me anymore?”

“I’m saying get the fuck out of my room.” He kept an aggressive tone to match the words, but couldn’t control the pain on his face so easily.

Peter sighed. “Will you let Mantis stay with you instead? She won’t touch you unless you ask her to.” He didn’t need to add, _or unless you attack her._ Rocket was the only one who would worry about that happening, and he could work it out himself.

“Whatever,” Rocket grumbled, turning his back to Peter.

After switching places with Mantis, he didn’t have to wait much longer for Gamora and Drax to show up. They couldn’t yet take off, since they had promised to repair the hut and do some additional service to make up for the trouble caused, but they wouldn’t be disturbed here in the meantime. 

Peter sat down in the common area and pulled Groot onto his lap, meeting with some resistance before the little tree tucked his feet up and leaned his head sadly against Peter’s shoulder. Drax sat nearby, but Gamora stayed on her feet, too agitated to be still. Peter could sympathize. He explained everything they had missed, finishing with, “I think he’s just feeling really guilty. We have to find some way to convince him it wasn’t his fault.”

Gamora whirled to face him, her hands slashing the air. “Are you out of your _mind?_ ” she demanded. “Rocket nearly killed you!”

He stiffened, jostling Groot, who glared back at Gamora with him. “You can’t possibly hold that against him!”

“Of course not,” she responded instantly, and everyone in the room calmed down along with her. “But that’s the whole point. God knows he doesn’t want you to die. How do you think he feels knowing he can’t trust himself to fall asleep in the same room as you?” She shook her head. “This isn’t something that goes away when you forgive him.”

Peter lowered his eyes, abashed. Drax was nodding silently, and even Groot seemed to understand that she had a point. “So what can we do?” Peter asked.

“We can start by figuring out why he did it. I assume you would have told us if you had noticed anything strange beforehand?”

“Yeah, it was just a normal night…” Peter hesitated. Thinking back to just before the episode made him conscious that he had a child on his lap, even though he wasn’t planning to describe anything that he and Rocket had been doing. Their relationship wasn’t exactly a secret, but they had agreed that the others didn’t need to know about it yet. Everyone had already been accustomed to Rocket sharing Peter’s bed, so no change was apparent when they had begun to do more than sleep there.

Drax watched him rubbing Groot’s shoulder for a moment, and then abruptly stood up. “There’s no reason for you to be awake any longer, young Groot,” he announced. “And we may need to discuss the sexual habits of Quill and Rocket, which is not for your ears.”

Peter’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way as Drax collected Groot from his lap and left the room with him. Finally he turned to Gamora. “How obvious was it?”

She smiled wearily. “Drax figured it out himself. You tell me.”

“Oh. Wow. Um…”

“It’s fine, Peter. Now that you don’t have to talk around it, can you think of any way it might have affected Rocket’s behavior tonight?”

It was admittedly a relief to have that not-exactly-a-secret off his back, even if he felt like he needed more time to find his footing before returning to the topic at hand. He leaned forward and pushed his hands through his hair. “Maybe. When we -- when he first got his hormones back he was worried they were giving him, you know, animal reactions. Like, if I get angry and yell at him, he automatically goes into this kicked dog routine. I guess it’s possible his subconscious mind got fucked up somehow.”

Gamora considered that solemnly. “But it’s been months since you healed him,” she pointed out. “And this is the first occurrence of this kind, isn’t it?”

“He’s never done anything remotely like it before.” He checked himself on that one. “I mean, he has nightmares sometimes, but I give him a hug and talk to him and he calms right down. He’s never attacked me.” That was a slight evasion -- Rocket had inflicted plenty of scratches during those nightmares, but reaching for a weapon was on an entirely different level.

“How often do you have sex? Has that changed at all?”

Peter squinted at her, trying to determine if she was serious. He and Rocket were on a ten-night streak, but he wasn’t sure it was worth it to divulge that just for the sake of some idle speculation. On the other hand, the frequency really had changed a lot since the beginning, so maybe it did have some significance. “More lately than before,” he allowed.

Gamora regarded him with her head tilted thoughtfully. “Rocket’s always been volatile. I think he had some reflexes in place to deal with his trauma, and with the complications of sexual activity, maybe they just don’t work anymore.”

She wasn’t saying it was his fault, he knew, but he had been so careful to avoid hurting Rocket, physically or emotionally, that the idea of their relationship itself being a source of stress was devastating. It might even go beyond that, since the act of healing him with the Light had introduced his sex drive in the first place. “All I wanted was to give him a better life,” he said softly.

“You already have. We’ll solve this, Peter. Once Rocket has had some time to pull himself together I’m sure he’ll help us help him.”

Peter wished he shared her conviction. He pushed himself up from his chair. “I’m gonna go check on him.”

He knocked at Rocket’s door before entering, and it was Mantis’s gentle voice that answered, “Come in.” 

She was the one sitting in the overstuffed chair, now, with Rocket perched on one of its arms. They weren’t talking or touching, but both were looking at the Zune that Mantis held, sharing its earbuds. It was clearly just what Rocket needed, and Peter felt a stab of jealousy that Mantis had thought to try it when he hadn’t. He wished he could hear the song that was playing, but each held their earbud too closely, and they weren’t singing or humming along.

Mantis tapped the controls after a few more seconds of silence, then held the device out to him. “It was in the kitchen,” she said. “I hope that you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not,” he replied, but both of them were offering their earbuds to him now, so he could only accept them. He shifted his feet, uncertain, then said to Rocket, “Drax is putting Groot to bed. I guess you’ll want to sleep in here. Maybe Mantis can help, if you’re both okay with that. Um, just let me know if there’s anything you need.” He turned to go.

“Pete. Wait.” Rocket sounded like himself, the most hopeful thing Peter had heard from him all night. “I dunno what’s wrong with me, but...I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Peter gave him a grateful smile. “Me too, Rocky. Me too.” He took a deep breath, then plunged onward: “Gamora was kind of theorizing about it and she thinks you’ve got something from your past that isn’t reacting well with the, with the changes in your body. Can you think of anything you were feeling that could get us on the path to confirm or deny?”

He was glad to see that Mantis didn’t excuse herself or look embarrassed; somehow he felt she had a right to be here, and she seemed to feel the same way. She watched Rocket serenely, waiting for his answer, and he licked his lips and confessed, “Not really. That’s the thing. All I got is tryin’ to get away from somethin’ and then snappin’ out of it. If it was a dream I don’t remember the dream. If I got brainwashed and programmed to murder Peter Quill when a timer ran out, I don’t know that either.”

“That’s what I thought,” Peter sighed. “It’s okay. But maybe think about letting Mantis give you her empathy psych eval. I know it always helps me,” he added with a smile in her direction.

Rocket and Mantis shared a sideways look, and Rocket gave her a subtle nod. She turned her eyes to Peter. “I have already touched him. I felt what he is feeling. We learned something that we thought you should know.”

Peter blinked. “What?”

“You have a link to Rocket. You are...present in him.”

Feeling the need to sit down, Peter pulled up one of the crates that served as furniture in here. “A link?” he echoed. “You mean...because I love him?”

Rocket’s eyes fixed on him, wide and shining, but he said nothing. Mantis furrowed her brow, then reached out a hand to Peter, which he took without question. She paused, antennae aglow, then released him and shook her head. “No. Not that.”

Peter flinched, at a complete loss for words, but Mantis continued blithely, “The love goes both ways. Peter to Rocket. Rocket to Peter. This is something else.” She frowned, and her voice dropped an octave. “I think I recognize it. The Light.”

“Ego’s Light,” said Peter, his stomach twisting.

“Your Light,” Mantis corrected him. “Ego is dead. You have some of the Celestial power now, and you used it to rejuvenate Rocket, and it remains in him like blood and bone. It may always remain, I don’t know.” 

Frightened, Peter looked at Rocket, but his face was unreadable. “Well what does it mean?” Peter demanded. “Is this going to hurt him?”

Mantis looked truly surprised. “How could it hurt him?” She caressed Rocket’s head, neither of them showing any sign that this was at all unusual. “It may be helpful now,” she said to Peter. “I believe I can use your link to access Rocket’s unconscious mind, if you are willing to go.”

Seconds ticked by before Rocket grew impatient with Peter’s silence and said, “It’s not that complicated, Quill. She puts me under, you touch me, she touches you, and you poke around in my head until you can figure out why I was sleep-shooting.”

“It’s just...that sounds like the absolute last thing you would ever want me to do.”

Mantis made a questioning sound, and Rocket slumped against the back of the chair and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m not stoked for it. But I got no other plan.”

Peter nodded with shared reluctance. “Well, I think it’s worth a try.”

They agreed to move to Peter’s bunk for the sake of its furniture, and on the way through the ship, Peter stopped to explain to Gamora and Drax what they were doing -- as far as he understood it himself, anyway. “Then I’m going to sleep,” Drax declared. “It’s taken all of you an inconsiderately long time to stop needing supervision tonight.”

Gamora was less certain that everyone was out of danger, but she eventually accepted that Mantis was the expert here, and that she could handle anything that came up in this experiment. Peter thanked Gamora for all she had done, and bid her goodnight.

Rocket was lying on his bed, eyes wide open, when he went into the bunk, and Mantis had brought up a chair to sit close to him. Peter sat down on the bed, then lay down, curving himself around Rocket in their typical sleeping position, but with a little more space between them than usual. It felt odd to have Mantis there, but he had dressed in regular clothing after cleaning the scratches on his chest, so it didn’t feel like he was going to bed, either. Rocket was fully clothed as well. 

“For you it will be nothing but a deep sleep,” Mantis told Rocket. “You won’t remember any dreams.” He nodded and closed his eyes, and she brushed her fingers against his forehead. If nothing else, Peter thought, Rocket was at least going to get a good night’s sleep out of this, something he surely needed badly.

Peter arranged his arm around Rocket so that he would still be touching him while they were both unconscious. “Now what?” he asked Mantis.

“I think…” she said. She put her hand over Peter’s, and her antennae lit up above her closed eyes.

Instantaneously, Peter was no longer reclining on the bed, but standing in a wide open outdoor space, and Mantis was standing next to him. “What the fuck!?” he yelped, turning in a circle and clutching at his head.

“I thought it would be easier to explain this way,” she said. She was looking around herself with calm interest. “We are here. Your body is sleeping, and mine is in a trance, but don’t worry. I can wake all of us up at any time.”

He got over the initial shock quickly. Everything felt very real, but not in a way that made it difficult to separate his current state from reality, and he trusted Mantis. “We’re in Rocket’s mind?” he asked.

“His subconscious mind. You won’t encounter any of his thoughts, or true memories, although they will be symbolized in some way.” She pointed at a huge, brutalist building a short distance away, although Peter didn’t know why she bothered when it was really the only thing to see here. Underfoot there was some short, dying grass, and it continued on a flat plane until fading into whiteness, merged with the pale sky.

“It’s a prison,” Peter remarked, shaking his head. “Mighta known. Well, should we start exploring?”

Mantis didn’t move. “I cannot accompany you. The link is between you and Rocket; I am only your guide.”

“But how am I even supposed to get in there?” There was no door that he could see, and the entire structure was surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence. “I mean, that’s where I’m supposed to go, right?”

“Prisons don’t lock from the outside,” she noted with a small shrug. “Good luck. Remember that nothing can harm you.”

He exhaled with a resigned chuckle. “Thanks, Mantis. So long.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of the long coat he now seemed to be wearing, and headed toward the prison.

The gate appeared in the fence as soon as he got close, and swung open before he could look for its latch. Facing the solid cement wall a few yards in, he hesitated, then pictured a door. It came into existence immediately, and he turned the knob and walked in, looking back to wave to Mantis first.

The only thing inside was another building, this one made of brick but just as ugly. Peter turned around and saw that the walls of the first prison had become a fence instead. He had a feeling there was a lot of walking ahead of him, so he called up another door and went through without stopping to analyze any of this.

He went through three more nested prisons, each one slightly different than the others, but always smaller. At some point he began to notice that the place was populated by silently moving humans, each one at least twenty feet high, but translucent and sometimes vanishing altogether. They all wore white coats and looked down at clipboards or instruments in their hands, walking through walls and paying no attention to Peter.

“I’m getting close, aren’t I,” he said out loud. The door in front of him now wasn’t on a prison, but a giant cage, dark inside. He didn’t know what he was getting closer to. Presumably there would be some representation of Rocket somewhere, but there was no way to plan for meeting him without knowing any more than that.

Inside the cage there were four walls with a roof, forming a medium-sized square room. There seemed to be more of the ghostly giants here, but they still took no notice of anything around them, and he felt contemptuous of them rather than afraid. He pictured a door for himself and walked through.

The room had white walls and a white floor, but the ceiling was gone, so he could still see the ghosts wandering around outside. The only thing inside was a solid waist-high stand, right at the center of the room, with one transparent cage on it and one tiny animal in the cage.

Peter approached it with his heart pounding. The creature was a baby raccoon, shivering in the center of its enclosure, mewling with fear. The glass cube was open at the top, so Peter reached in, making _shh, shh_ sounds, and the raccoon scrambled right into his hands. He cupped it against his chest, on the left side so it could hear his heartbeat, and it settled down instantly, pressing close to his body.

Slowly he sank to the floor, leaning back against the cage stand, petting the kit with one fingertip. It was small enough to fit in the palm of his hands, all rounded features and fuzzy fur in muted colors. “No one ever did this for you, did they?” he said, voice thick with emotion. “They took you away from your family, and they locked you up all alone, and they never just held you and made you feel safe.” He looked up at the scientists, looming just over the wall, and informed them loudly, “Well, you can forget about getting him back. He’s mine now.” The kit squirmed, and he lowered his voice back to a whisper. “You’re mine now. You’re where you belong. I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again.”

He didn’t know how long he sat there, cradling the infant mammal, or even if time moved differently here. It seemed to be doing Rocket’s subconscious some good, if the peaceful snores from his avatar were any indication, but Peter knew that if nothing he did in here meant anything at all, he still would have picked up the raccoon. Seeing such isolation and helplessness, there had never been another option.

Eventually, though, he had to stand up and consider his next step. He couldn’t stay here forever, and he couldn’t remove Rocket from his own mind. The thought of putting him back into that empty cage was repulsive, but then he remembered how he had created the doors on his way in. He concentrated, and the glass cube was replaced by a wicker basket, full of soft blankets and a milk bottle and a plush raccoon that played a lullaby. When he set the baby down, it pawed at him, trying to get back in his arms, but he tucked a blanket over it and soothed it with a gentle scratch. Bright black eyes blinked at him, and then closed as the raccoon curled up in its new bed.

Peter took a look around at the rest of the environment here, certain he could make some more improvements. The huge silent scientists were still visible, and he hated them for their untouchable distance almost as much as for the torment they represented in Rocket’s memories. They wouldn’t disappear for him, since another would just walk out of a wall once the rest were gone, but he managed to change the four walls around him to a dense forest, where the trees grew so tall that even giant ghosts couldn’t be seen beyond them.

“Okay,” he murmured to the sleeping kit. “I’m going now, but I’m still here. I’ll always be here.”

When he thought about how he was supposed to get out, he found a walkie-talkie in his coat pocket, and instinctively held it to his ear and said, “Mantis? I’m ready for extraction.”

He heard no answer, but he was suddenly back on his bed, still spooning the Rocket of the real world. He looked up at Mantis, who was smiling brightly. “Rocket is not so troubled now,” she said. “See?”

Rocket did look happier in a way, although he was sleeping like the dead. Peter spent a moment stroking his head, marveling at how different yet similar he was to the frightened little orphan he had hidden inside. “Thank you,” Peter said quietly to Mantis. “Can we do it again sometime?”

“Of course.” She stood up and bobbed in a motion that was like an informal kind of curtsy. “Goodnight.”

After she had left him alone with Rocket in his bunk, he was tempted to stay right where he was and let himself join Rocket in true sleep, but something told him that if he did that it would be for his own sake. Rocket hadn’t said he was ready to return to Peter’s bed, and it might be a while before he was. In careful movements, Peter stood up, stretched, and then slid his arms under Rocket and lifted him up. 

The corridor was empty, Peter being the last one awake on the Quadrant. He pushed the door to Rocket’s room open with his hip, keeping his arms tight around him until he had reached the hammock and could set him down in it. Rocket never stirred -- Mantis-induced sleep was hard to interrupt until it had run its course -- but Peter handled him with utmost tenderness, taking time with the jumpsuit so that he didn’t have to tug it hard to get it off. He covered him with a blanket, smiling as he realized that he was repeating the same bedtime ritual that he had just completed in Rocket’s subconscious.

The Zune was still in the room, so Peter moved it to a higher shelf where Rocket could reach it from the hammock when he woke up. He paused, wondering what else he could leave as a reminder that he was nearby, then took off the shirt that he was wearing and tucked it under the blanket, near Rocket’s sensitive nose.

Peter’s exhaustion hit him all at once as he watched Rocket grab hold of the shirt and knead it in his hands without waking. “Keep it,” Peter murmured. “Keep everything. It’s all yours.” He kissed him goodnight, and trudged off to his own bed.


	4. Access Granted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter takes another journey into Rocket's subconscious mind, and encounters a part of his own past there. 
> 
> Takes place a few weeks after the preceding chapter, "The Prisoner." Might not entirely make sense if you don't read that one first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst on top, smut on the bottom. (That's not a metaphor. If you want to skip the angst, there's a divider halfway down.)

For the third trip into Rocket’s subconscious, Peter chose a night that they were deep in space with days of travel left before reaching a planetary system. The sense of isolation felt appropriate, knowing that nobody but the Guardians would be around to intrude. Peter brought it up with Rocket in the morning, got his consent, and found Mantis later to ask her if she was willing to guide him into the trance state again.

She was, of course, and apparently Rocket had already asked her, which Peter thought was a good sign. Rocket’s improvement after the past two sessions had been palpable, and Peter was hoping that it wouldn’t take much more before he felt ready to return to the physical relationship they’d had before the night terror that changed everything. They didn’t really talk about it from day to day, but lately Rocket had been comfortable enough to sit close to him and get some platonic petting. Maybe soon he would be back to sleeping in Peter’s bed, where he belonged.

But it wasn’t a surprise when they met in Peter’s room with Mantis at bedtime, and Rocket’s first request was, “You’ll get me back to my bunk after, right?”

“Special delivery,” Peter agreed, noting to himself that Rocket was already in pajamas this time. Peter was too, having anticipated the weariness that would come after the lucid dream, but he hoped that Rocket wasn’t making his preparations out of reluctance to have Peter undress him like he had before.

“Gimme your shirt,” said Rocket.

Peter looked at Mantis, who shrugged. He turned back to Rocket. “Uh. Why?”

“I need a replacement. Don’t be greedy.”

After another confused pause, Peter finally remembered leaving his shirt in Rocket’s hammock with him. Neither of them had mentioned it since then, but it hadn’t shown up in the laundry, and Peter’s scent must have worn off of it by now. He cracked a grin. “Fine, but I’m keeping it on until you go to sleep.”

Rocket cocked his head, then nodded. “Deal. Do the sleep on me, bug.”

Mantis tapped his head and induced his slumber so quickly that Peter had to catch him and lay him down to be sure he wouldn’t tip forward off the bed. Like the last two times, Peter stretched out beside him and rested one hand on him, and Mantis touched him next, sending him into an oblivion that only lasted for a second before resolving into an entirely different world.

He was standing next to her in an open field, now familiar in spite of the slight differences it had each time, both of them dressed in the clothes they had been wearing earlier that day. Peter knew where to look to find his destination: it had been a prison the first time and a featureless metal cube the second, but now it was a generic grounded cargo ship, missing a few parts that would have made it spaceworthy.

“I will be waiting,” said Mantis simply.

Instead of walking away, Peter regarded her for a moment, curious. “You never ask about what I see in here.”

She blinked, which always seemed like an exaggerated reflex on her just due to the depth of her eyes. “It is not for me.”

“It’s not really for me either, though. I mean it’s only by chance that I even have access.”

“So it is with all loves,” Mantis replied, smiling gently. “Go. Go to Rocket.”

Peter nodded and turned to the ship, feeling humbled by her benediction. The nearest hatch opened for him as he approached, and he stepped onto a grate over a cavernous interior.

He stayed where he was, listening to the hatch close behind him. Last time he had been in Rocket’s mind, he had come expecting a repeat of the first experience and looking forward to cuddling a baby raccoon again. Instead, he had found himself wandering through a giant computer, with screens everywhere that scrolled through endless coded data or played jumbled memories in video clips. Peter had searched for Rocket’s avatar until he realized that the computer _was_ Rocket, and then he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Ultimately, he had done his best to upload some positivity into the databanks, but he had left feeling uncertain about his impact. The computer hadn’t changed anything about his perception of Rocket; he just couldn’t relate to that kind of metaphor. This time he was hoping for something more in his element.

There was no sound of activity in the ship, but Peter noticed when he began walking that it was predictably designed -- probably not a specific vessel from Rocket’s past, but based on the mental blueprint of many like it. There was no sinister feeling about it, anyway, and that was a first. Peter lengthened his stride and whistled a few upbeat notes.

When he turned the corner into a half-empty mechanical storage area, he found another being at last, though it was at some distance and under a dark shadow. Peter approached with caution; the figure was seated on a crate and hunched over, but humanoid and close to his own height. He didn’t know what to expect until he came a little closer and the other looked up, showing his face: a blue face, crowned with a cherry-red fin.

Peter stopped in his tracks. _I can’t do this._ The thought didn’t come to him as a denial or a refusal, just a factual statement. He couldn’t face his lost father figure, not here, not like this.

But Yondu was standing now, staring at him in open astonishment. “Boy? The hell you doin’ here?”

The light in the room hadn’t changed, but following the rules of dream-logic, the shadow had lifted and Peter could see him clearly. The fin was the tall version he had replaced decades ago but had been wearing when he died, proving that the image of him wasn’t something taken from Peter’s own mind’s eye. Little else about Yondu had ever changed over the years, so everything was achingly familiar now, from his voice to his long coat to his faded scars to the smell of the cologne he wore. 

There was one difference. Yondu’s eyes had been a piercing magenta, and the ones that Peter was looking into now were warm russet brown. Peter wasn’t an idiot; he knew what was happening here, but he couldn’t ignore the mask that Rocket was wearing. He could run away, maybe. Call Mantis, beg her to let him out of here. Abandon the man who had raised him and the raccoon he loved at the same time. If he stayed, though, he stayed for both of them.

He breathed in deeply, but his voice still came out as a whisper. “Yondu. I’m so sorry.”

Instantly, those out-of-place brown eyes filled with rage. “You’re _what?_ Try again, Mister Quill. I ain’t here to take no confessions.”

Peter swallowed. “Then I don’t know what to say. I miss you. I never understood a goddamn thing about you until five minutes before you were dead, and now all I want is to ask your advice about stuff, like, like how to deal with this crazy little bastard who’s kind of exactly like you, Yondu, I swear, I love him so much and I want to help him and you, you would know how, and you’re not here. I finally get you and I need your help and you’re not here.”

“That’s a damn lie,” said Yondu, glowering. “What kinda help you need ain’t never gonna come from me. Don’t you go tellin’ me I were a good father to you, boy. Least sign o’ respect you can show a dead man is to tell the truth about ‘im.”

“It is the truth,” Peter insisted, fighting tears and losing. “You sacrificed everything you had for me, you were--”

“I know what I was!” Yondu shouted into his face. “I know what I done! Ain’t no kinda sacrifice when my whole life was no more ‘n thievin’ and killin’. That’s all they made o’ me so that’s what I done to you in turn, don’t you _ever_ deny that!”

Peter didn’t know what strategy, if any, he had had when this began, but it was gone now. He was only talking to his father, only hearing his father, only reacting as he always had when he fought with his father. His voice picked up volume. “Don’t tell _me_ what kind of childhood I had! You think I don’t remember you teaching me to fight by beating me until I hit back? Telling me to man up because I was still grieving a whole week after my mother died? Chasing me with that fucking arrow until I dropped from exhaustion while the whole crew laughed at me?” 

There was a flicker of surprise in Yondu’s expression, reminding Peter that this wasn’t really him: he knew the basic story of Peter’s life with the Ravagers, but no specific memories from Yondu’s point of view. Peter covered his face with his hands and took a breath to steady himself, fixing his mind on Rocket but still speaking to Yondu. “You never should have had a kid. Obviously.”

“O’visly,” Yondu echoed, all the fire drained out of him.

“But you did. Check it out, old man. Here I am.” He gestured obliquely at himself. “I’m just sayin’, I get it. You didn’t know any decent people who could take me off your hands, so you had to teach a scared little Terran boy to survive on a Ravager ship. I think we both know I wouldn’t have stood a chance without you.”

Yondu scratched his face, a movement so vividly reminiscent of Rocket that Peter almost expected his ears to twitch, too. “Y’all deserved better than that kinda life,” he muttered.

“No kidding. I’m not the only one. You grew up a battle slave. Rocket got daily torture for his ABCs. That shit doesn’t just go away.” He sighed deeply and admitted the worst of it: “You’re right. You weren’t a good father. I forgive you for that. Forgive me for not being a good son.”

“It ain’t your fault,” Yondu objected. “All that time you really thought I’d kill you, my own lil’ child. I never even said I was sorry.”

That wasn’t right; Peter distinctly remembered Yondu’s apology in his last moments, but there was no ironic tone to his words now. The only explanation was that he wasn’t speaking as himself, but at this point Peter wasn’t sure he could separate the dual identity if he tried. “Yeah, well, when you love someone sometimes you gotta fill in the gaps. I wish Rocket would just say outright that he cares about me once in a while. Instead I have to go into his subconscious and talk about my own issues with my late dad just to get a little insight to who he is.”

“He does…” Yondu looked confused, as if he didn’t know where the words were coming from.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to try to explain what was going on to him, so Peter changed the subject even while clasping the words in his heart like a keepsake. _He does, he does, he does care._ “I do miss you. That wasn’t a lie.”

For the first time, a ghost of a grin crossed Yondu’s face. “I’m a’right, boy. I’m keepin’ an eye on you. And that gang o’ pariahs y’all took up with.”

A few hot tears came out to renew the ones that had dried on Peter’s cheeks. He wanted more than anything to believe that the real Yondu was watching over the Guardians from beyond the grave, and his mind was desperately trying to convince itself that he had somehow made contact, and that Yondu’s words could be taken at face value. But the fact was that this was Rocket, even if he didn’t know it himself. Rocket was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a spiritual medium. When he said he was alright, all it meant was that Rocket was alright.

“Thank you,” Peter said as he realized that he had just gotten exactly what he came here for. Not only that, but Rocket had revealed just how much of an impression Yondu had made on him, and how he had his own way of keeping his memory alive. Peter took a quick step forward and embraced Yondu before he could get away. “I’m keeping an eye on you too, okay? I’ll do better this time.”

There was just a brief hesitation before Yondu hugged him back. “You do that,” he said in a low voice, and then, even more quietly, “Don’t leave me, Pete.”

Peter jerked back in surprise to look at him, but as soon as their mutual grip had loosened, Yondu vanished in a streak of red light. Peter turned in a slow circle, but the nondescript supply room was empty, and he was sure the same would hold true if he searched the entire ship. “I won’t,” he vowed, then took out his comm to ask Mantis to bring him back.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Two days of relative normality passed, during which Peter observed Rocket painting a red arrow on a weapon he had designed, placing a cute figurine on his control console, and listening to the same song from Awesome Mix. Vol. 2 at least eight times. Neither of them mentioned Yondu, or their own relationship, but when Peter sat down on the floor behind him, Rocket leaned back, and when Peter offered to share his glymberry candy, Rocket licked his hand before accepting it.

That night, Peter was drifting off when he heard the soft sound of his door opening and closing, and then the covers near his feet lifted up to admit a familiar small furry body, which crawled forward until it was snug against his chest. “I missed you,” Peter breathed, wrapping an arm around him.

Rocket nuzzled his neck, then pulled back enough to speak in a quiet voice without being muffled. “I don’t know what you did. I think maybe you shouldn’t tell me. But I can tell I ain’t gonna try to shoot you in my sleep anymore.”

“We should do something nice for Mantis,” said Peter absently, relishing the feel of Rocket’s fur under his hand as he stroked him from head to tail. “It was more her than me.”

“Sure, whatever.” Rocket’s claws combed through Peter’s hair, as if he was petting him in return. “Tonight I’m just here to sleep,” he cautioned.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed, still rubbing down his back. “We should wait a little bit before we do anything else.”

“Yeah.” Rocket touched his face lightly, then settled down, close enough that Peter could feel his breath on his bare chest. They lay like that for a long moment, Peter letting his hand continue on its repeated path down Rocket’s back, reasoning that it would stop on its own once it got tired. He was trying to judge if Rocket was asleep yet when he spoke up again: “Pete?”

“Mm?”

“I don’t want to wait.”

“Oh thank God.” Peter rolled Rocket onto his back, poised himself above him, and found his lips in the darkness. He remembered once thinking that Rocket’s pointed muzzle meant he wasn’t able to kiss, but now he knew that the only actual limitation was that Rocket couldn’t pucker up -- instead of a peck on the cheek or a simple gesture of affection, he went straight to the tongue-wrestling stage, like he was now. For Peter, it was a turn-on like he’d never known, and combined with the period of chastity they had just gone through, he didn’t know how he was going to contain himself.

Fortunately, Rocket was already unclothed, and he was using his feet to pull down Peter’s sleep pants while his hands were yanking at his hair. He was growling deep in his throat, a sound that could have only meant danger from a true animal, but was recognizable as lust coming from him. Peter finished kicking off his pants and then slipped a hand between Rocket’s legs, rubbing circles with the pad of his thumb until he felt movement. Rocket detached his face from Peter’s long enough to pant, “More!”

“Did I say you could stop kissing me?” Peter countered, but he kept his hand going until Rocket was fully erect.

Instead of answering with words, Rocket snapped his teeth down on Peter’s earlobe, hard enough that it had probably drawn blood. He followed up by sucking on it, though, a trick he had never done before which seemed to have magical properties. Peter lowered himself to press flat against Rocket’s belly, slowly as he could bear, and began grinding against him. As soon as his cock touched Rocket’s, it went hard, and Rocket let go of his ear to moan loudly.

Peter took it upon himself to collect the kissing debt, and Rocket complied while squeezing his thighs together with Peter’s cock between them. His hands were everywhere; first digging claws into Peter’s nipples, then pawing at his face, then buried in his hair. “I wanna fuck you so hard,” he growled, before catching Peter’s lip in his teeth and releasing it only to thrust his tongue in deeper, thwarting Peter’s attempt to momentarily detangle himself.

“If you’re gonna make good on that you better let me grab the lube,” Peter informed him, laughing.

“No, don’t.” Rocket locked his hands around the back of Peter’s neck, holding him where he was. “I wasn’t bein’ literal. Lube takes too long. Stay like this.”

Peter paused to caress his face, wishing he could see into his eyes through the darkness. Truth told, he was in total agreement about the preparation for anal intercourse taking too long, and he didn’t want to leave his current position, either. He was propped up on his elbows to shelter Rocket’s body under his own, with the blanket making a tent over both of them, and he liked the thought that Rocket wanted to keep him there. 

On the other hand, they were both aiming for more than really good cuddling tonight. Peter moved his hand down to palm Rocket’s cock and found it slick with pre-cum. “If I stay like this I’m gonna end up coming all over you,” he warned.

“Do that,” Rocket urged him, rolling his hips to maximize contact with Peter’s hand.

“You _hate_ when I get jizz on you.”

“Do it or I’ll put the lube in your fuckin’ coffee tomorrow!”

Peter stopped arguing and turned his attention to the friction on his cock as it pushed steadily against Rocket’s belly. The first time he had been intimately tickled by that fur, it had given him a new kink, but he didn’t get to feel it that often. Rocket was fastidious about neither of them shooting a load anywhere on his body, which made sense, considering what it did to his coat if it dried. 

The only reason Peter could think of for Rocket’s sudden change of heart tonight was that he knew what Peter liked and he wanted to please him. Peter wanted to reciprocate just as much, but any act of generosity from Rocket was meaningful beyond words, and all he could do was accept it without making any direct reference to it. “Is this what you want?” Peter rumbled, pressing harder, moving faster. “Tell me what you want. Make some noise for me.”

“I want you, I want your dick, I - ah! _Ah!_ ”

Peter had slid toward the foot of the bed to put Rocket in his mouth, just long enough to get him close to the edge. When he had earned a few good wordless cries, he switched his mouth for his hand and returned to loom over Rocket again, face to face. “You’re so fucking hot, you’ve got no idea what you do to me, Rocky, every time I look at you I just wanna grab you and touch you and suck on you…”

Rocket was practically wailing now, helpless in Peter’s grasp, and it only took a few more deft strokes before he squirted his first jet of semen onto himself. Peter kissed him hard while he was still coming, but then pushed himself up and knelt with Rocket between his legs, giving him the angle he wanted as well as a dim grey view of Rocket’s smug, satiated face.

He stroked himself while he drove against the exquisite texture of Rocket’s belly, but it wasn’t until he felt a small agile hand sneak beneath him to fondle his balls that he came, as he had said he would, all over Rocket. He fell forward onto his hands, one on each side of Rocket’s head, both of them breathing hard. After a few seconds of recovery time, Peter threw the blanket off and scooped Rocket up in his arms. 

“What are you doin’ now?” the raccoon grumbled, but his body was as warm and weighty and relaxed as wet pasta. Peter would have willingly carried him across a planet on foot when he was like this. 

“Taking you into the shower,” Peter yawned. “Can’t have you messing up my sheets, you kinky fiend.”

Rocket rubbed his head into the curve of Peter’s throat. “Don’t use that floral conditioner crap on me.”

Peter nearly tripped before getting into the bathroom door. “You mean you’ll let me wash you?” Every other time they had showered together, it had been a splashy drama of Peter wanting to administer to him, and Rocket refusing any help at all.

“Sure.” His tongue flicked out one last time, bestowing a Rocket-style kiss on Peter’s jaw. “Long as you get me back where I belong, after.”


	5. This Is How You Tango

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Peter wants to try out something new, Rocket points out an imbalance between them, and Peter is determined to fix it in true space outlaw playboy style. Things start to go a little sideways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time warp! This one takes place somewhere between the second and third chapters - after they've started fooling around but before things get serious. 
> 
> Some angst and silly fun before we get to the smut. Some angst within the smut. Some fluff within the angst. It's complicated.

The Milano was still the Guardians’ transport of choice for short distances or potential battles, and its cockpit was still Peter’s refuge of choice when he wanted some peace and quiet. It was also Rocket’s, but if he truly wanted to be alone, he knew he couldn’t lock himself in there, so usually it just came down to who got there first.

Today, Peter was in there first, but he had left the hatch open, and truthfully wasn’t looking for peace and quiet at all. He smiled to himself when he heard Rocket come in and close the hatch behind him, but didn’t turn around. When Rocket reached him, he was draped sideways in one of the pilot seats, all of his attention apparently on the Zune.

Rocket slapped his arm, and he affected nonchalance, taking out his earbuds one at a time. “Oh, hello.”

“What’s this?” Rocket demanded, holding up a glossy plastic jar. 

Peter stifled a goofy grin. This was all going exactly as he had predicted. “Heyyy,” he drawled. “Where did you find that?”

“In your drawer where you planted it ‘cos you know I go through your stuff all the time in case you got somethin’ I want. What is it?”

“Read the label, genius.”

Rocket’s ear twitched in irritation. “Yeah, I know it says ‘personal lubricant’. What I’m askin’ is why you bought yourself a tub of sex grease.”

“I didn’t, I bought it for you.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I thought you might want to. You know.” Rocket didn’t seem to grasp the innuendo, so Peter continued: “Use it. On me.”

Instead of a chuckle or a feral grin, Rocket gave him a flat expression and asked, “Why?”

This part wasn’t going as Peter had predicted. He swung his feet down to the floor and dropped his seductive tone. “Well, it’s not that I’m not having a blast with all the oral, but I figured we were ready to mix it up a little. This is kind of the obvious next step.”

Rocket was silent for a moment, turning the jar around in his hands. “I don’t want anything goin’ into my butt.”

“No no no, that’s not the idea. This is for your dick and _my_ butt.”

“You like that?” Rocket asked dubiously.

Peter shrugged, trying to exude confidence. “I don’t know, I’ve never tried it.”

Rocket seemed taken aback. “Thought you said you’d…”

“I’ve been with guys before but I always topped. That’s not gonna work with us, so here’s my chance to cross something new off the list.” He paused. “If you want to. Only if you want to.”

“I don’t get why _you_ want to.” Rocket scratched his muzzle, falling into another silence, but then he spoke up again before Peter could respond. “I ain’t been with any guys or anyone, y’know, but my asshole’s gotten plenty of action from thermometers and probes and tubes and shit. It’s not fun.”

Not only had Peter not thought about that, but he wasn’t used to Rocket being this candid about details from his past unless he was drunk, or whispering secrets in the dark. Right now he didn’t seem too far past his standard level of irritation, but Peter felt instantly repentant anyway. “Yeah, of course you wouldn’t want to...shit, man, forget I said anything.” He reached for the lube, intending to throw it away.

Rocket sidestepped neatly, keeping it out of his reach. “I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna try. Don’t get all red like that. Just...what if we do it and you don’t like it?”

“Then we stop.”

“What if you do like it, but I don’t?”

“Then we stop,” Peter repeated. He raised an eyebrow. “This has been the deal all along. We only do things we both like. Right?”

Rocket huffed. “Yeah, but then what? I know you, Quill. You like a lot of things. You ain’t gonna be happy if you don’t get to do most of ‘em most of the time.”

Peter considered that. “Fair point,” he allowed, “but isn’t that all the more reason to find out what else there is that we can do together? I mean, I’ve had plenty of time to try new stuff out in bed; now I want to try new stuff out in bed with _you._ ”

“Fine,” said Rocket in a low voice, “but for me, new stuff in bed and new stuff in bed with you are the same damn thing.” 

This was something else that Peter hadn’t thought about. The Guardians had already been so close when Rocket began exploring his Light-induced sexuality that there was never a question about whether Peter could be trusted to explore it along with him. What they probably should have been discussing instead, though, was whether their arrangement was exclusive. Peter’s knee-jerk reaction was to resist the idea of Rocket getting romantic with anyone but him, but he knew it was a double standard -- he wasn’t ready to close any doors on his own sex life. Anyway, if Rocket was interested in playing the field, Peter wasn’t going to be the one to stand in his way. 

“Okay,” he said, putting together a plan as he spoke. “We’re landing on Solkstogg in a couple days, I know my way around there pretty well. You want to have a night out? Find some girls, show them a good time? You can try some new stuff that’s actually new.” He gestured at the jar of lube. “And doesn’t involve butts.”

Rocket tilted his head, drumming his claw on the jar. “You’d really be up for that?” he asked finally.

“I want to know I’m not just your default option.” Peter leaned sideways out of the pilot seat until he could reach Rocket and pull him closer by the lapel. “Hey, if you do decide there’s something your dick likes better than me, that’s fine. Long as I’m still your captain.”

“Yeah,” said Rocket. “‘Cos, I mean, it’s not like we’re a couple or nothin’.”

Did he sound a little dejected about that, or was it just Peter’s own wishful thinking? Regardless, neither of them were backing down. Rocket was bound to get curious about other genders and species and individuals eventually. At least this way, Peter could be nearby to keep an eye on him. If they succeeded in finding a date for each of them, it might even be fun.

The night they arrived on Solkstogg, Peter took Rocket to the tailor and helped him design and print a new outfit, which ended up looking a lot like a smaller version of something Peter himself would wear. Rocket griped about the limited pockets and built-in holsters, but he changed into it all the same, and met Peter at the door with his fur freshly washed and combed. Peter wolf-whistled his approval. “You look _fine._ ”

Rocket rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, you look dorky as ever. Ready?”

Gamora was watching them with detached amusement, standing over Groot with his hands in hers. “I think you both look very handsome,” she proclaimed. “Can I hope that you’ll have fun without causing any disasters, or are those two ideas mutually exclusive?”

“I am Groot,” said Groot.

Rocket pointed sternly at him. “No more than one hour o’ TV and get him into bed at a decent hour,” he instructed Gamora.

Groot whined, Gamora laughed, and Peter added, “And don’t wait up for us. We’ll call you if we need bail. If you haven’t heard anything in forty-eight hours you should probably come to the rescue.”

She pulled him to the side for a moment while Rocket was talking to Groot, and lowered her voice to ask, “Really though, you won’t go overboard with this, will you?”

“No,” he promised in the same tone. “And we’re not gonna make a habit out of it either, if that’s what you’re worried about. Those days are behind me.”

“There’s an automated brothel--”

“No!” Peter hissed. He chanced a quick look at Rocket, who fortunately didn’t appear to be paying attention. “No bots. No prostitutes. Whoever is in bed with Rocket is going to be someone who wants to be there.”

He hadn’t realized it until he said it, but that was really the entire point. It stayed in his mind as he and Rocket left the ship and claimed a table at a seedy bar that Peter remembered from his last trip to this world. Rocket wasn’t acting nervous at all; aside from the leather jacket he was wearing and the absence of the rest of the team, this could have been any night out. But just one implication that Rocket’s only options were a machine or a paid professional, and Peter knew the damage would last. 

This way, they were still running the risk that he’d be rejected, but as far as Peter was concerned, every guy had to deal with that at some point. Rocket had no illusions about a guaranteed match tonight, and wasn’t hanging any great importance on it. “Girls probably ain’t that big on folks they can’t find in their species handbooks, huh?” he remarked as their first beers of the night were set down in front of them.

Privately, Peter thought that Rocket’s bright eyes and smooth grin gave him an excellent chance of attracting someone, but he didn’t want to take any approach that was going to fuel his own jealousy. “Dude, I met this guy on Tetra once who was a literal giant duck. He had a drop-dead gorgeous chick hanging on his arm and was bragging about a whole parade that came before her. Trust me, if he’s got the stuff, you’ve got more.”

They had certainly chosen the right bar for it. Peter wasn’t sure if the place even had a name, but he knew its reputation well. The drinks were mediocre, the staff was usually rude, and the decor was ugly, so there was only one reason that anyone would choose to be here. No race or sexual orientation was favored and the only rule was that money couldn’t be exchanged for a hookup, so everyone around was hard at work trying to narrow down the playing field. The bar even catered to its prurient clientele by having rooms upstairs that rented by the night or the hour.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for Rocket and Peter’s combined efforts and smoky glances to draw a pair of lovely young ladies to their table, both of them humanoid with skin patterned in blue and silver. And then it didn’t take long for Rocket to explain to them that he wasn’t going to share his beer and that they should try stealing some if they couldn’t afford their own. 

“Did you listen to _anything_ I told you?” Peter snapped after the girls had made up an excuse and hurried off, but Rocket was giggling remorselessly. Peter decided to take matters into his own hands.

He left Rocket at the table, sauntered up to the bar, and loudly ordered a drink “for my friend, who’s over there brooding about all the tragic sacrifices he’s had to make to protect the galaxy. You’ve probably heard of him. Rocket Raccoon? Hero of Xandar, vanquisher of Ego? It’s not a lookalike. That’s actually him. Don’t let him intimidate you, he’s got a heart of gold underneath that gruff exterior. Not easy being his sidekick, though. I lost track of all the times I thought a girl liked me and it turned out she was just using me to get closer to him. The stories I’ve heard from the ones who manage to score a date with him, hoo boy…”

It was working, insofar as three pairs of feminine eyes were on him now. One asked if he was the legendary Star-Lord, and from there it was easy to coax all three of them back to the table and introduce them to Rocket.

Ten minutes later, he dropped facedown onto his arms as all three of them walked away. Rocket wasn’t just giggling this time, he was howling with laughter, banging his fist on the table and wheezing, “Can you believe -- that Xandarian girl -- she thought you were -- hehehe -- _good-lookin’_!”

Peter turned his head toward him, incredulous. “Rocket, I _am_ good-looking.”

“Yyyyeah, right,” Rocket guffawed. “Ooh, look who we got here, Mister Studly-Lord Quill! Ahahahaha!”

Over the next few hours, the cycle repeated several times: Peter would sweet-talk a girl or two who expressed some interest in him or Rocket, they all sat down together, Rocket insulted everyone, and Peter tried to explain to him why they weren’t getting anywhere.

Each attempt required a fresh round of drinks, and Peter was feeling them enough that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his charm turned on. “Okay,” he said to Rocket in his most serious voice. “Let’s go over this again. Flirting means smiling and being nice and lying about anything that isn’t nice. If telling her she’s pretty isn’t your style, try telling her she smells good.”

“None of ‘em do.” Rocket was holding a full pint glass with both hands, lapping at it instead of sipping. For about the hundredth time that night, Peter thought wistfully about how cute he was.

“They don’t have to! That’s what I keep telling you! Look around this place, man, it’s not where you go to find good clean--” 

He stopped. Rocket was standing up in his chair, balancing himself with one hand on Peter’s shoulder, his muzzle close enough to smell the beer on his whiskers. “You’re pretty, Quill,” he said. “Am I doin’ this right?”

Peter levelled his gaze at him for a long beat, and finally saw the humor in the situation. “Liar,” he said, his lips curving into a smile.

“Learned from the best.”

“You need more practice.”

Rocket’s mouth moistened Peter’s cheek before reaching his lips and parting them with his tongue. It was impossible to resist, but Peter didn’t let himself get too into it before he got the chance to murmur, “Everyone can see.”

“Good,” said Rocket. “Nothin’ reels ‘em in like jealousy.”

Peter had to wonder what the barflies were really thinking, seeing him with Rocket like this after he had been clearly playing as wingman all night. He doubted that any of the girls who had visited their table were actually feeling jealous. Well, they should have been. Rocket’s kiss was hot and wet, tinged with alcohol but more with his own natural heady scent. Peter hooked an arm around his waist and dragged him into his lap, earning a hard nip at the base of his throat.

“In that case,” Peter smirked, “want to dance?”

Rocket snorted and pushed his head up against Peter’s jaw, catlike. “How the hell are me an’ you gonna _dance?_ ”

It wasn’t entirely easy to push the chair out and get to his feet with Rocket still in his arms, but Peter managed. He held him up with one arm under his legs and their chests against each other, then took Rocket’s left hand in his right and held it out as far as Rocket’s arm would reach. “This is how you tango,” he said, looking toward their hands with his face pressed close to Rocket’s, and began to march around the bar with dramatic, slightly wobbling steps.

Rocket was laughing hard, which was good, because it had been a coin toss between that and murderous rage. Peter grinned and spun him in a circle, which very nearly cost him his balance and landed both of them on the floor. “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this,” he confided as he recovered his stance.

“This don’t scratch the surface of what I’m gonna let you do,” Rocket purred.

Instantly, Peter strode to the management booth in the corner, letting Rocket down as he went and grabbing his hand. “We need a room!” he announced.

They didn’t have to waste time settling the bill, since the inn was set up to keep the tab from the bar open until they checked out. Rocket snatched the key-chip from the receptionist as soon as it was offered, and Peter had to run to follow him up the stairs and to a door marked with their number. Rocket did the unlocking, but Peter picked him up again so he could kiss him while swinging the door open and kicking it shut behind him.

“Did you bring the lube?” Rocket demanded. “You didn’t bring the lube, did you, big freakin’ dolt?”

“Of course I didn’t.” Peter backed up to the bed and sat down on it, hanging onto Rocket until he had fallen back onto the mattress. “How was I supposed to know you were gonna change your mind?” He lifted up one foot to unlace his boot. Until now he had thought they were getting ready to trade blowjobs. This was better, but he felt like he was missing something about how they’d gotten here. “Check the drawers. Betcha anything they keep ‘em stocked.”

The sounds of Rocket rummaging culminated in a cry of victory as Peter finished getting his boots off. He was still lying on his back as Rocket returned, licked his face, and went for his belt.

Peter laid a hand on his neck. “Wait. Are there any sobriety tablets in there?”

Rocket looked up, flicking his ears back. “Why? Those things don’t even help with hangovers.”

“I don’t think we should do this drunk.”

“I definitely want to do this drunk.”

That settled it, as far as Peter was concerned - his judgment had to be clear if Rocket’s wasn’t. He sat up and went for the drawer while Rocket grumbled, and found the packet of small pink pills with a warning label that danced blurry letters before his eyes. Once he was sure they were what he wanted, he swallowed two of them and instantly felt his coordination beginning to return.

Rocket was already back to working on his pants, which were getting harder to remove as Peter’s cock responded to his proximity. Peter ran his hands over Rocket’s head, then moved down to unbuckle the holster he was wearing and let it slide to the floor along with the single small but lethal weapon it was holding. Rocket had just done the same to Peter’s own holster, and now he had finally gotten to his fly and freed his cock.

Peter helped Rocket out of the black leather jacket, making sure to take in the sight of it first, as this might be the last time he ever saw him wear it. Underneath was a thin white shirt that Peter slipped his hands under to pull over Rocket’s head. That was as much as he managed before Rocket was suddenly licking his cock, stroking both hands up and down the shaft. Peter let out an unrestrained moan. He was thinking more or less clearly again, but sobriety pills couldn’t do a damn thing about this. 

When Rocket paused for a breath, Peter quickly stripped out of the rest of his clothes and reached for the lube that Rocket had left next to him on the bed. As soon as he broke the seal, Rocket saw it and said, “Let me put it on you!”

“No.” Peter scooped out a glob on two fingers. “I’m going to do it. Why do you still have clothes on?”

“I’ll do it better!” Rocket insisted, struggling out of his pants.

“You’re drunk and you’ve never done it before and your fingers are freaking sharp at the ends. I got this one, Rocky.” He spread his legs out, making sure to give Rocket a good view. “Watch and maybe you can do it next time.”

He wasn’t sure if this would occur to Rocket, but he hadn’t actually done this to himself before either. It was hard to decide if he enjoyed the cool shock of the cream on his skin when all he could think about was Rocket’s hungry eyes on him, and the stiff member he was now stroking as he watched. Peter got one finger into himself and didn’t hesitate before proceeding to two. With his other hand he pushed the jar of lubricant at Rocket. “Get yourself ready,” he panted.

Rocket spread a generous handful onto his erection, but then he sat very still in the V of Peter’s legs, eyes wide at the sight of the three fingers that Peter now had engulfed. “Are you sure?” he asked in a voice that sounded small and meek and not even tipsy.

“Not if you don’t want to. Tell me.”

“I do want to,” said Rocket, much more firmly, and Peter recalled what he had said before: _I don’t get why_ you _want to._ After all his trauma, after his abrupt initiation to the confusing world of sex, he was actually worried about hurting _Peter._

“I do too,” Peter promised.

Rocket crept closer, one hand on his cock as if he was aiming it like a gun. “So do I just, uh…” he began uncertainly, and Peter thought, _What an odd moment to realize you’re in love with someone._

Peter put a hand out to guide him. When Rocket pushed into him, it was better than he had hoped. He gasped so loud it was more like shouting. Underneath his own voice he could hear Rocket’s, making the high-pitched sound he sometimes did when he was overwhelmed with sensation, and Peter hastened to assure him, “Just like that, it’s good, it’s good…”

“It doesn’t hurt?” Rocket asked, pitched forward, hanging onto Peter’s hips like a life raft.

“No baby it doesn’t hurt at all,” Peter breathed.

“It’s not scary?”

“No baby it’s not scary.” He reached out to cup Rocket’s face in his hand, struggling with his own emotional response to these timidly spoken questions. “Nothing to be scared of. Not for us. You can go deeper. Try it. Yeah…”

Once Rocket had worked out a good rhythm, Peter finally allowed himself to touch his own cock, keeping his other hand close to Rocket’s face. Lost in the moment, Rocket opened his mouth and ended up sucking on Peter’s fingers. It wasn’t the right time to say anything about being in love -- Peter wasn’t even sure how Rocket would react to being called ‘baby’ -- but those lips around his hand were enough to seal it. “You’re the _only_ one that I want,” he said, before he even knew that he intended to say anything at all. “Do you hear me? I want you, Rocket. Just you.”

Rocket didn’t reply, but he thrust harder, squeezing his eyes shut as if pained. Peter raked his fingers through his fur, then dropped his hand for Rocket to grab it and hold tight, steadying himself. His breathing was getting faster and harder, accompanied with a moan that had started barely audible but was louder each time. Peter stopped trying to forestall his own orgasm, so when Rocket stammered, “I’m gonna--” and then shrieked, collapsed forward, and heaved a sigh, Peter was right behind him.

He expected Rocket to curl up at his side after he felt him slide out, but instead, Rocket rested his head on Peter’s belly and stayed nestled between his legs. Peter smiled and pet him for a moment, then exhaled deeply and said, “We need to talk.”

Rocket fixed one irate eye on him. “You already asked someone else to the prom, huh?”

Unwilling as he was to move, Peter made himself sit up and managed to do it without disturbing Rocket too much, then shifted him over his thigh despite his sounds of complaint. “We have to get cleaned up, dude,” he said as he searched the drawers where they had found the lube and sobriety pills. “I’m sure they’ve got stuff for it somewhere...ah.” He found a kit under the bed and came up again holding a warm wet cloth.

He tried to start by rubbing Rocket down, but Rocket snatched the cloth away from him right away, and Peter sighed and pulled out a second one for himself. “I meant what I said,” he continued as he wiped down his skin. “I don’t need to leave my options open.”

Rocket had already finished with his cleanup, and was regarding Peter over his knees, tucked close to his chest. “Maybe I do. Maybe I was just settlin’ for you tonight.”

“Oh come on. At least give me the credit to know your ‘deliberate sabotage’ face. God knows I’ve seen it enough.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Are you even drunk?”

“So what about it?” Rocket challenged. “I didn’t want to fuck any girls in the first place. This was all your idea.”

Peter flicked his cloth away and sat there, naked, waiting for Rocket to loosen up again. “So you’re not attracted to females. Well, at least we learned something.”

Rocket looked at him, then looked away. “I’m not attracted to males either.” 

Peter cleared his throat, raised an eyebrow, and prompted, “Except…?”

“No except. Whatever it is you humies feel, I don’t got that. It feels good when we fuck and you still smell good when we’re not fuckin’, and I trust you, but it ain’t attraction.” He fidgeted and gave his hands a few aimless licks, and his frustration was suddenly clear. “I don’t have a thing where one day I’m gonna get bored and want someone else.”

“So you think _I’m_ gonna get bored?” There was no response, so he followed the pause with, “I won’t. Rocket, I won’t.”

“You don’t know.” Rocket sighed. “And it don’t matter. If you wanna know I won’t touch anyone but you, I won’t, okay? You shoulda figured that out in the first place but I know how dumb you can be, so, I’m sayin’ it now. But it’s not from bein’ faithful or anything like that. It’s just how I am.”

After all the jealousy that Peter had been trying to ignore in himself all night, it was an undeniable relief to have the assurance that Rocket wasn’t interested in pursuing any other sexual partners. It was also disappointing that he didn’t consider it a vow of fidelity. “Don’t you want me to not touch anyone but you, though?”

Rocket shrugged, which kind of hurt. “How ‘bout you do whatever you want but you tell me about it first so’s it ain’t a secret?”

“Or I could just do whatever I want and not have to tell you first because you’re the one I’ll be doing it with.”

“Shut up. If you want rules, these are the rules. Don’t make me any promises.”

It felt odd to actually be having this conversation. There were so many things they never openly discussed that sometimes Peter wasn’t sure which ones were already established rules, if unspoken, and which were just habit. Now that he had some momentum, though, he couldn’t resist: “How about demands? Can I make demands?”

Rocket was unwinding into a less closed-off position, but that made him stop and narrow his eyes. “Like what?”

“Do that thing where you lick my face before I fall asleep.”

The surprise in Rocket’s response was evident. “I only did that ‘cos I...it’s a...don’t humans think that kinda stuff is just, y’know, gross?”

Peter reached for him, stroking his back until he finally began to close the distance of his own accord. “No, baby, it’s not gross. Not for us.” Whatever he had with Rocket was always going to be complicated, he reflected, but now he had a clear goal in mind: however long it would take, he was going to prove he was in this for the long haul. Rocket might not accept a promise, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make one to himself.


	6. Turn the Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Rocket have just been diagnosed with immortality. Rocket contemplates what this means for their future.
> 
> Takes place at a later point than any of the previous chapters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who's been patiently waiting for the next chapter through this hiatus...is probably going to be mad as hell when you read this. If it helps, I'm not so happy with myself either, but it had to be done.

_Click._ It was such a strange, simple device. Press the button with a triangle on it, get a song. _Click,_ and it stops, and you could learn what song would come next, but you couldn’t choose it.

Rocket had been alone with the Walkman -- _his_ Walkman -- for an hour, and he had learned all of the songs and also modified the device so that it would last for decades, just as Peter’s had before Ego broke it. He ran out of things to do with his hands before he got tired of listening to the music, so now he was just sitting in his hammock, pressing the button, staring at nothing and thinking about what would come next.

“I am Groot?”

Rocket looked over the hammock’s edge. “Yeah, you can come in. Close the door.”

Groot had been looking for him, apparently, because he had been reclusive enough today for everyone to notice. Groot was going through a phase that walked the line between curious and nosy, but Rocket was in no mood to snap at him for it. “I’m okay,” he assured him. “I’m just thinkin’.”

Groot sat down on the floor. “I am Groot.”

“I’m thinkin’ _hard._ ” He pulled down the headphones to hang around his neck.

The tree made an inquisitive sound, pointing at the cassette player.

“Yeah. Pete made me a tape like his mom used to make him. You can borrow it later if you’re careful.” He didn’t need much of a prompt from Groot to make him continue. “He just...likes doin’ nice things for people.”

“I am _Groot._ ”

Rocket swallowed a slight lump in his throat. “Maybe. Sure. Especially me. He’s done lots of nice things for me.”

The way Groot conversed wasn’t probing. He never seemed to have an ulterior motive; he just wanted to know everything about everyone. The old Groot had gone along with whatever Rocket chose to do, but he had always seemed to already know everything that was worth knowing. It had taken Rocket some time to get used to fielding questions about himself, and right now Groot had a real stumper for him: what was he thinking so hard about?

He steeled himself and found the answer: “I’m gonna do something nice for Pete, for a change. Only...he’s not gonna understand it like that. He’s gonna think I’m pushin’ him away like I used to. That’s why I gotta think hard about how to do it.” Peter’s voice echoed in his mind, _We need to rethink this._

“I am Groot?”

“Well...it’s kind of a grown-up thing. And a mammal thing.” Rocket wasn’t usually too careful talking about sex in front of Groot, since it was a subject so far removed from his physiology that he ignored it anyway, but that put limits on how to explain Rocket and Peter’s relationship. “I’ll maybe start sleepin’ in here again, is all.”

Groot frowned. No doubt about it, he understood enough to know there was something amiss when the sleeping arrangements changed. 

In a frustrated fit of energy, Rocket gathered up the Walkman and headphones and shoved them onto the shelf, then jumped down from the hammock and paced a circle around the room. “Groot, do you get what immortality is? I mean, do you really know what it means for me and Pete?”

There was a silence. When Groot finally answered, he sounded cautious, as if he were being tested, but Rocket thought he made more sense than he even realized.

“Yeah,” said Rocket, “of course you and me and him are always gonna stick together. But someday, you’re maybe gonna give us a Baby Groot, or a bunch of ‘em, and they’ll grow up, and you’ll die.” He didn’t want to talk about that, but he knew it was harder for him to say than it was for Groot to hear it. “And me and Peter...we won’t. We ain’t gonna renew. We ain’t gonna die. The whole future is us just how we are right now.”

He let out a long breath. Groot was still confused, of course. He was probably just wondering what this had to do with the mix tape, or sleeping in a different room. Rocket tried again. “It’s okay for me. I never had it better than this, y’know? I can go on a long time not havin’ any regrets. But Pete’s not done with the life he’s got now.”

In his mind he heard the words again: _We need to rethink this._ He knew what Peter had meant by that: they were supposed to legitimize their union by agreeing upon some terms and vowing not to separate. Peter had wanted that for months, and hadn’t made any secret of it. When discussing it hadn’t gotten him anywhere, he had stepped it up into courtship rituals. That was the only way to describe it. Gifts, dates, professions of devotion that Rocket had steadfastly refused to return. 

Rocket’s argument, every time, was that Peter would get tired of him eventually and want out. That had some truth to it -- the thought of Peter feeling restless but staying with him out of a sense of duty hurt far more than the thought of Peter loving someone else -- but there was another angle to consider, one which Rocket was still coming to terms with himself. Peter had a human heart, and he knew how to be happy, and he was good. He deserved to live side-by-side with another person like that, for at least some small part of his endless life. As long as Rocket was in his bed, that wasn’t going to happen.

It felt like the right decision. The sacrifice involved was one that Rocket could handle, since he never experienced any physical compulsion for sex until he was already being stimulated. He would miss it, though: the all-consuming orgasms, collapsing onto Peter’s broad chest to the sound of his gentle chuckle, falling asleep wrapped in contentment and security and his captain’s sweet scent. Maybe that last one more than anything. Sleeping alone brought back bad memories, and Groot was too independent now to want to share a room with him.

But he would still have it good. They could all have it good, even Peter, once he got used to the changes. “Okay, “ said Rocket out loud, in response to nothing. “I’m gonna go talk to him. Listen to the Walkman. If I’m not back in five songs, come after me.”

Groot’s vines stretched out eagerly to the shelf to retrieve the music player, and he was settling the headphones over his wooden crown as Rocket left the room. The first few notes of the song playing were audible, although Rocket had known what was up next even without hearing it: the one about driving for too long, and performing music onstage, and being mocked in a restaurant. For some reason it seemed appropriate.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

“The hell are you talking about?” Peter asked. “You want to have a threesome? With Gamora?”

Rocket looked truly disgusted. “Ugh, no! I don’t wanna have nothin’ to do with this! It’s just you and her, a’right?” He didn’t mention what Gamora thought of this plan. Peter would have wagered good money that she didn’t know anything about it.

“Why would I want that?” There were too many questions on this matchmaking madness of Rocket's to get them all covered, so Peter tried to stick to pointing out the most obvious fatal flaws. “Why would she want that? We haven’t been into each other for years. And anyway I’m with you, dumbass.” He took a step toward him. They were in Peter’s bunk, but Rocket was keeping far enough away from the bed that for once it really felt like Peter’s bunk instead of both of theirs.

The space between them didn’t close up as Rocket responded earnestly, “Yeah, but you don’t have to be. I know you kept sayin’ you wanna pledge me your whole life, but that means somethin’ a lot different now your whole life ain’t just fifty-odd more years.” 

“That right? All it means to me is that we need each other more than ever. You said that yourself, you said I shouldn’t be alone.”

“You won’t be. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. But everyone else...we’re gonna lose ‘em. We’re gonna be the only ones left, and you’re gonna wish you hadn’t spent all the good years on me. And I don’t know what happens then but I know I ain’t gonna like it.” He sounded a little strained by the end, but he shook his head to clear it and said with false cheer, “You oughta at least bring it up with Gamora. Drax an’ Kraglin won’t help, they only like girls. Prob’ly goes for Nebula too. Mantis is...yeah, not Mantis.”

Peter gritted his teeth. “You know I can see right through your shit, right?” He bit off each word, not concerning himself with his usual role as the designated calm one in an argument. “I thought we were past this. I thought if there was one thing I had accomplished it was showing you that I want you around for real. Are you seriously gonna bring back the untouchable act _now?_ ”

Rocket seemed to puff up a little, like a cornered cat. “It ain’t like that,” he insisted. “You said we gotta rethink what we were doin’ together. So this is what I think.”

“That this is the end? That we should give up on each other?” Peter leaned forward, cutting the air with both hands. “ _Not what I meant._ ”

“No! Geez, man, get ahold a’ yourself. This ain’t a, whatchacallit, breakup. I told you plenty a’ times, I don’t get the squishy feelings like that anyway.”

“Don’t you fucking lie to me. You were _happy._ You know exactly what love feels like. How does being immortal change that?” Peter could hear his own words getting louder and faster, and knew it was a symptom of panic. If anyone was going to save this situation, it would have to be Rocket.

But instead of swooping in for the rescue, Rocket sounded like he was trying to negotiate reasonably, which just threw Peter's world further askew. “It don’t change _that_. It just means we gotta think farther ahead. Do the sex with other people, do the rest of it together.”

Peter huffed out a disdainful breath. “Well, for this not being a breakup, you sure have the classic script down pat. Newsflash: in the real world, nobody who’s asking ‘Can we still be friends’ really expects the answer to be ‘yes’.”

There was a sudden, deafening silence. Rocket looked like he had been shot through the heart. “You would do that?” he murmured.

Wracked with guilt, Peter turned away, reasoning that he couldn’t look at Rocket’s face and think clearly at the same time. “You would do _this?_ ” he asked the wall.

“Pete, don’t get mad. It’s not fair if you get mad.”

There was a whole lot that Peter could say about that use of the word “fair”, and he almost did, but Rocket’s voice had quavered in a way he heard very seldom. There was no sarcasm or complaint in that tone. In fact, it sounded outright terrified.

Of course. Rocket still had the involuntary submissive reactions that they had discovered by accident when Peter got angry at him. It was easy to forget about: Peter used it sparingly and with utmost caution in the bedroom, and of course he had no desire to control Rocket with it if they happened to disagree about any serious matter. Rocket was absolutely right that it wasn’t fair. 

Peter tried to tell himself that, tried to repeat it as many times as it would take him to calm down, but his nobler inclinations didn’t seem to be functioning properly. It wasn’t _fair_ that Rocket was dumping him like this. It wasn’t _fair_ that he was supposed to be rational when he was hurting this much. It wasn’t _fair_ to be immortal in a universe made out of brevity and loneliness.

Slowly, Peter chanced a look over his shoulder, then completed the turn. Rocket was crouched close to the floor, his ears flattened and his head bowed as if expecting a blow. Seeing him like that always made Peter want to rush over and gather him in his arms and protect him from everything forever, but this time, that impulse was checked by a concurrent flash of resentment. How could Rocket possibly be afraid of him, even subconsciously? He had never hurt him. He never would. Rocket had to know that.

“If I told you to get out of here right now,” Peter said quietly, “would you have to do it?”

Rocket was even quieter. “Pretty much.”

“What if I told you to stay?”

Rocket lifted his eyes, not all the way up to meet Peter’s, but enough to show his confusion as he processed the question. “Are you…?”

Peter had to think before answering, realizing as he did so that he would feel ashamed of those three seconds of hesitation for the rest of his eternal life. Convincing Rocket to stay would have meant reconciliation, but he had tried that and failed. Ordering Rocket to stay would have been a different kind of solution, one which ultimately would have destroyed both of them. “No,” he choked. “God, no. Do what you want to do.”

They spent barely half a day apart before Gamora grabbed Peter by the arm, hauled him into her bunk, and commanded him to make peace with Rocket. He tried to explain what was happening, but she cut him off instantly and said she didn’t care and she didn’t want details, but that he had to talk to Rocket and do whatever it took to make him happy, and that she was going to tell Rocket the same thing, and that the end of the day was their deadline, and that the rest of the Guardians would be off the Milano exploring the planet to give them some time alone together.

Peter didn’t ask what would happen if they didn’t obey. He went looking for Rocket, who found him first and invited him to sit down in the cabin. They both took the couch, leaving the tape deck and a little too much space between them.

“Thing is,” Rocket began, his voice low and a little unsteady. “Thing is. That jumpstart I got when my junk got healed...it’s kinda gone. All the physical stuff is the same, but I don’t got the sex drive anymore. I just feel like I used to when I was neutered.”

“Oh,” said Peter, and then wasn’t sure how to follow it. “I didn’t think that was the kind of thing that would wear off.”

Rocket seemed to regain a little confidence as he went on. “Me neither, but, y’know how it is. No instruction manual.”

Peter nodded. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

“Well, I know how you’re all about the hanky-panky. Didn’t want you to think it was anything to do with you.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s been fadin’ out for a while now. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up until…”

“No. It’s okay. I understand.” He reached out to stroke Rocket’s head, paying close attention to his reaction: Rocket didn’t pull away or express any displeasure, but he didn’t lean into it or offer any affection in return, either. Peter felt certain that he would have, yesterday. “Sorry about those things I said,” he ventured. “I must have been out of my mind to play it like I didn’t want to be friends. We are, right?”

Rocket sat up straighter and locked eyes with him. “Pete, you an’ me are in this forever. The real kind of forever, now. Anything comes around that makes us not wanna be friends, we gotta shoot it dead.”

Peter managed a weak smile. He had questions: why was Rocket’s submissive behavior still active if his hormones weren’t? Why hadn’t Peter picked up on any sign of diminishing enthusiasm when they had made love just days ago? What exactly would it mean to be friends now, after everything they had shared?

He couldn’t ask. There was a long road ahead of him, and he had to accept with gratitude whatever would make it more bearable. He continued to pet Rocket, and Rocket continued to let him. He was going to have to get used to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When we're hurting, we can say some awful things to the people we love. When there's no right answer, it doesn't mean that nobody is wrong.


	7. Keep the Light On (Extended)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distant future. Still immortal, still in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This is not a new story.** It's another version of "Keep the Light On", which was the one-shot where I originally conceived of the Roquill AU in which "Legacy" takes place. (That one hasn't been orphaned, so I won't link to it from here.)
> 
> Since the previous chapter finally addressed Peter and Rocket's immortality (and since it was a sad one), I thought it was time to include the distant (happily matrimonial if melancholy) future where we started. Further installments will continue to jump around, probably more in the early days of the timeline than in this era.

From his vantage point on an outcropping of rocks, Peter could see how the ravine split the world in two, with waterfalls coming down on the other side and his red M-ship dwarfed by the cloudscape over the flat cliff where he had left it. The stony surface gradually gave way to dirt and grass, and finally trees and hills. From time to time, Peter looked over his shoulder at the forest’s horizon behind him, silently promising it that he would be there soon.

There was no real rush. He barely ever felt impatient anymore.

When the dot of a distant ship appeared in the sky, though, waiting for it to land suddenly seemed like it would be unbearable. The dot got bigger, and Peter’s smile grew along with it until he could make out the familiar contours of a steel-grey spacecraft much larger than the one that had brought him here.

It settled on the cliff with the light touch of an experienced pilot, and Peter got up and came down from the rocks just before he saw one small figure exit through the side hatch and look around himself.

They walked toward each other at a leisurely pace. When the other was close enough for Peter to see pointed ears and a waving tail, he cupped a hand to his mouth and called out, “Hey asshole.”

Rocket’s response rang out instantly: “Hey loser.”

“Hey nimrod,” said Peter.

“Hey dweeb.”

As the distance between them closed, Peter dropped to one knee and folded his arms around Rocket. “Hey trash panda.”

Rocket hopped nimbly onto Peter’s thigh, giving him a return embrace that was strong enough to put him off balance. “Hey douchebag.” They both fell sideways onto the grass, still holding onto each other, Peter getting tickled by a faceful of whiskers.

Peter pressed his forehead to Rocket’s, breathing in his unique scent. A few heartbeats went by, and then he felt Rocket lick his cheek and let go. He sat up.

“Twelve goddamn months,” Rocket mused.

“The galaxy managed to hold itself together. We got our errands done. Guess that means everything worked out okay.” The year apart had been experimental; neither of them had thought that their relationship needed it, but Peter had been concerned that they depended on each other too much. The only way to test it was to see how they dealt with living on their own.

“Sure,” said Rocket, “but it sucked.”

“Let’s not do it again,” Peter agreed.

They both stood up, dusting grass off of their clothes and fur. “You been to the Grove yet?” Rocket asked.

“No. I was waiting for you.” He hadn’t known exactly when Rocket would arrive, but it was a half hour’s walk from the cliff to the Grove, and he hadn’t wanted to miss watching the ship land. “You were the last one to come here, I think. It’s been a few months for me.”

Rocket made an affirmative sound as he began walking in the direction of the treeline. Peter matched his stride, occasionally letting his knuckles caress the furry head beneath it. Before they had left the landing site behind, Rocket pointed over at the red ship and said, “Where’d you get that?”

Peter shrugged. “Spoils of war. I figured we could keep it here as a spare.”

“Is it any good?”

With Rocket that was never a yes-or-no question, and motors filled the conversation for most of the rest of the walk. When the trees first began coming between them and the sun, their responses got slower, and by the time they reached the old clearing in the heart of the wood, they were silent. Peter crouched to run his hand over the ring of smooth stones that he had arranged there around their firepit. The footpath was harder to find, being a little overgrown, but for the most part, nothing had changed. He smiled at Rocket, then faced the trees and said, “Hello?”

A deep rumble answered him, then the sound of an approaching footfall that covered more distance in a single step than Peter could have with three. Another came from a different direction, then there was the rapid patter of a smaller being, and then faces appeared between the trees, on additional trees, each one gazing at Rocket and Peter with kind and curious eyes.

Peter stood, grinning, and watched with amicable envy as Rocket darted over to the tallest one and scaled up to perch on his shoulder. Two others, one around Peter’s height and one a foot taller, came to greet him in their earthy voices, and he embraced one with each arm and made remarks on their growth which seemed to please them. They were still young enough to ask questions, mostly ones that made little sense. They had never left this planet, and their understanding of Rocket and Peter’s stories about their travels was limited.

Peter could still hear the words “I am Groot” whenever they spoke, but he no longer needed Rocket to translate. Their meanings were always clear, though how or exactly when it had happened remained a mystery.

Now he was being told by multiple Groots that they had something to show him, and Rocket, who had leaped from shoulder to shoulder to be back near Peter’s side, had been getting the same message. Groot led them all in a procession, while Rocket rode up high on Groot, and Peter walked between Groot and Groot.

The surprise that was waiting for them was a true surprise, and a wonderful one at that. Carefully planted in a patch of sunlight near the riverbank, a tiny sapling beamed up at them, waving miniature branches as if ready to start dancing. “Groot!” Peter exclaimed. “Welcome to the universe, twigster!”

He went down to his knees to get closer, and Rocket scrambled to the ground and let the baby tug his whiskers. “This makes sixteen,” he said with subdued pride. “I remember when we thought we’d lost the only one.”

Peter sagged a little, because he didn’t. There was some vague recollection of a terrible loss and an unexpected rebirth -- he thought it had happened when the original team had formed -- but details were constantly vanishing from his memory, consequence of a long life without any superhuman mental powers. Rocket had no such problem; he remembered everything as if it had happened yesterday, and he was the one who safeguarded the memories that they shared. There were times that Peter wondered if Rocket had the worse end of the deal, but he took on the burden without complaining, and supplied reminders whenever Peter needed them.

Searching his pockets for a healthy treat, Peter came up with a piece of dried fruit and offered it to the little tree, who popped it into his mouth and squealed in delight. Rocket fondled his head gently and rose, and the procession moved back to the clearing after waving goodbye. One adult Groot stayed behind, Peter noted gratefully. There were no enemies here, but such a small plant could face any number of dangers. The others must be keeping a constant eye on him.

“I am Groot,” said a tree walking beside Peter, just barely taller than him.

Rocket overheard and looked down from his ride with a chuckle. “You want to leave the planet with us, huh?”

“It’s been a long time since we had a Groot come along,” said Peter, amused. “I don’t know, buddy. It can be scary out there.”

“I am Groot!”

Peter patted his shoulder. “I’m sure you’re very brave. Maybe when you’re a little older, okay?”

Rocket jumped over to put himself in the middle of the conversation. “We got a good lineup in the Guardians right now,” he said to Peter. “Been a long time since they had a Groot, too.”

Now that was an interesting thought. Peter mentally ran through the current roster of Guardians of the Galaxy: a sentient android from Terra, a girl who boasted direct lineage from Starhawk and Aleta, a mutant Krylorian, and two hybrid siblings whose parent species were both unknown to Peter. They would take care of Groot, and there was a good chance that the android would even be able to understand him.

Peter was tempted to push for letting Groot stay with them instead of the Guardians, but he could see where Rocket was coming from. Life with a cosmic adventuring team was dangerous but undoubtedly fun, full of opportunity and friendship. Peter and Rocket’s life was grounded in the hard choices that they had made as a consequence of outliving everyone they had loved. They found fulfillment in their own way, but it had left them with errands instead of missions, allies instead of family. Peter’s happiest times were always here, the nameless planet where glory was impossible, the safest place in the galaxy.

Three Groots accompanied them back to the landing site and helped unpack Peter’s new ship, carrying some items to the old one and some to the Grove. Rocket did a preliminary walkthrough of the vehicle, pronounced it acceptable, and named it the Aorta. Peter poked his head into Rocket’s transport, but without much interest. Even after a year, not much would have changed within.

The last thing that he strapped across his back before they sealed up the ships was an acoustic guitar, obtained on Terra some decades ago. Rocket flashed him a grin when he saw it. “Was afraid you’d gone and smashed it on a stage after gettin’ weepy-drunk somewhere.”

“Aw, come on. I’d never do that if you weren’t there.”

“Don’t do it tonight. Unless you got a whole stash a’ guitars hidden in the Aorta.”

Peter laughed. “Hell, I didn’t even bring enough beer to get drunk on. Let alone weepy.”

Rocket walked beside him this time instead of climbing up a Groot. “Ya didn’t? Typical. I’m gonna set up a home brew.” He described the equipment he had brought and the process he was going to use, and Peter listened, smiling uncontrollably, not caring one whit about beer.

The sun was sinking as they reached the clearing with the fire pit again, and Peter was impressed to see that the Groots had gathered dry wood and arranged it in a pyramid ready to be set ablaze. The generosity was normal for them, but they weren’t usually very good at anticipating the needs of mammals, and nobody had mentioned making a fire. Those that were still nearby reacted with pride when Peter thanked them, and he could tell there had been a lot of discussion and planning over it in his absence.

Rocket lit the fire using a humorously primitive device, and Peter settled down to tune the guitar on the log they had leveled out as seating. He had been playing now for as long as the entire musical careers of some of his old rock heroes, but had never bothered to hone his skills beyond what he needed for nights like this, entertaining the most intimate of audiences. Rocket preferred listening to singing along, so Peter had gotten used to the sound of his own voice solo over the simple acoustic strains.

As he began to play, though, an otherworldly kind of accompaniment rose out of the forest around them. The Groots had vanished into the darkness, but they were humming on key, fading in and out from tree to tree, with no telling if it was subconscious or intentionally musical. They provided percussion too, softly tapping on themselves or each other or the real trees. Rocket, who had joined Peter up on the log, requested his favorite and then rested his head on Peter’s thigh and said nothing for the next five songs.

They cooked dinner over the fire, using food from the supplies they had brought from the ships to last until they could hunt and harvest. While eating, they caught each other up on some details from the past year, but when all that remained of the food was a drop of marshmallow that Rocket was trying to lick off of his palm, conversation yielded to the crackling of the fire and the rustle in the forest. Peter leaned back against the log and wrapped an arm around Rocket, contented but solemn.

“Do you remember my father?” he asked after a few minutes of staring silently into the dying flames.

“Yondu or Ego?” Rocket responded.

Hearing Yondu’s name still gave Peter a little bit of a pang, probably because he heard it so rarely. “Ego,” he clarified. “The Celestial.”

Rocket stretched and resettled under his arm, nodding. “What about him?”

Peter sighed. “This year has been...I’ve been thinking about him a lot. I would get so lonely and I would have these deranged ideas pop into my head, like, if I met someone I liked, I would start hoping they would die soon so I wouldn’t have a chance to get to know them first. Or, I thought it would be cool to have a son just so I could see what I would have looked like if I got old. Creepy shit. It didn’t get too bad, ‘cause I knew I’d be back here with you soon, but…” He shook his head. “I always told myself I was better than Ego. Maybe I’m just younger.”

“You won’t go evil, Pete. I know what it looks like. I’d tell ya.”

“I know,” said Peter immediately. “But now I’ve had a little taste of what life without an expiration date would be like without you. I don’t think I could do this alone.”

“So what?” Rocket’s voice had a tinge of its old snarkiness. “You don’t have to.”

Peter could only answer with a grunt of pained agreement. He knew Rocket wouldn’t leave him, and he understood why the implication of any other possibility would get his hackles up. They were in this together, and that was a truth so ironclad that they had long since stopped even referencing it. But that was exactly why the thought of losing Rocket was so terrifying.

His pause must have made something click for Rocket, whose tone turned gentle again. “Oh, I get it. You’re thinkin’ I could croak before you do.”

“You could,” Peter shot back. “We’re not indestructible. You could take a bullet or fall off a cliff or who even knows, and then what? Do I just kill myself right then to make sure I never turn into another Ego? Do I cross my fingers and try to keep playing the interstellar hero forever? It’s not fair to put that on you, on top of everything else, but I don’t know how else to be ready in case it happens.”

“‘’On top of everything else’?” Rocket echoed quietly.

Peter picked up a woodchip and chucked it into the fire. “You know.” He preferred to believe that the reason he never brought this up was because Rocket didn’t like to talk about it, but his own shame was telling him that was just a convenient excuse. “Even if you forgave it back when it happened, I’m still dealing with it. I can’t help that.”

“Idiot,” said Rocket with affection. He snuggled closer. “Nothin’ to forgive. You wanted to try out your cosmic godboy superpowers and I said yes. No way we coulda known about the side effects.”

Rocket’s faultless memory, Peter reflected, wasn’t immune to a perspective bias. This was one event from the days of the first Guardians of the Galaxy that Peter himself could recall with perfect clarity, and he knew he hadn’t been interested in testing his superpowers. Rocket had been sick. Aging. Suffering from constant pain and malfunctioning cybernetics. Peter had only recently discovered that Ego had left him a legacy after all, enough control over the Light to heal his own body and minor wounds on others, and he had all but begged Rocket to let him use it to try to restore his health.

Even then, blissfully unaware of his own eternal longevity, he couldn’t bear to let his friend go.

He rubbed his fingers through Rocket’s neck fur. “I thought if we were lucky, it would give you another fifty years or so. I thought that was about how much time I had too. All I wanted was for us to have matching lifespans. Wham bam, wish granted.” He shook his head regretfully. “You should have had a choice.”

“You didn’t get a choice either,” Rocket pointed out. “You pitched a fit when we figured it out. Bet you don’t remember that. We went to a shaman with a Celestial connection and she checked us out and gave us the diagnosis and you were havin’ none of it.” He laughed. “You said if the Light was doing this, you wanted a flarkin’ Lightswitch so you could turn it the hell off.”

He was right; Peter didn’t remember that. In this case he might have intentionally blocked it out, since he probably hadn’t found it the least bit funny at the time. “Did I talk about committing suicide?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Rocket flipped back to sobriety. “Yeah. I don’t think you woulda done it, but it was on the table once you knew your death was the only way to get the Light outta the universe for good.”

Peter didn’t need to ask what had taken it off the table. However he might have felt about his heritage, the Light was in his hands now, not Ego’s, and it was doing no harm. It kept him and Rocket alive. He feared a future in which Rocket died and he survived, but the reverse would never be the case. When the Light went out, it was over for both of them.

The fire was down to embers now, but Peter had been staring at it for so long that his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness around it. He tilted his head back, drinking in the stars. The entire sentient population of this planet consisted of sixteen _Flora Colossus_ and two migratory spacefarers, and its skies would never be touched by smog or light pollution. They had done this one thing right, at least. They had made a difference here.

“You used to be a jerk,” he said suddenly, chuckling. “I don’t remember everything but I remember that. You were always insulting everyone, making threats. Getting us into trouble.”

He could hear the smile in Rocket’s words. “So why’d you keep me around?”

Peter had to think about that. His bond with Rocket seemed like such a foregone conclusion that it was difficult to imagine any state of mind that preceded it. “I guess I just liked you,” he answered. “I was probably a jerk too.”

“Not like I was,” said Rocket. “But yeah.” His tail flicked, brushing against Peter’s hand. There was a long silence, looming larger now that the Groots had gone off to bed and the fire had died. Rocket’s voice sounded small and vulnerable when he spoke again: “I’m tired.”

Peter dropped his face to lean it against the top of Rocket’s head. “I’m sorry.”

“Tired a’ bein’ awake,” Rocket groused. “Not tired a’ bein’ alive. Cut the melodrama, we still gotta get the house set up.”

With a sigh, Peter hauled himself to his feet, kicked some dirt over the embers, and strapped his guitar on while Rocket packed up the remnants of dinner. The treetops blocked the meager starlight as soon as they stepped onto the footpath, and Peter was almost entirely blind, but instead of taking out a flashlight he let Rocket lead him by the hand through the forest. There was another, smaller clearing up ahead, and Peter didn’t even realize how close they were until it was suddenly illuminated. He looked down to see Rocket, now visible if shadowy, holding a pocket controller.

The light was coming from the windows of a structure about twenty feet off the ground, supported by a mighty tree at each corner of its quadrangle base. Rocket fiddled with the controls again. A roof folded out from the top of the house, and a wooden ladder lowered at an angle, rungs straightening into steps.

Peter felt the day catching up to him as he mounted the ladder; he hadn’t wanted to leave the fire pit, but rest was beginning to sound good too. Rocket took his usual shortcut up one of the trees, still entering commands into his device, one-handed. He had never used the ladder, as far as Peter could remember.

The treehouse whirred and clanked internally, but by the time they were inside, everything was moving into its position and a fresh clean breeze was circulating. They fell easily into an established routine: Rocket checked everything electronic and mechanical to make sure it was still working properly, and Peter unpacked and took inventory. He finished first, so he made up the bed and was sitting on it wearing his flannel pajama pants when Rocket came in through the window.

“Copacetic,” said Rocket. “You still need this light on?”

“No,” Peter replied, but then lay back and asked, “Do we still have that thing where the ceiling goes invisible?”

He couldn’t tell if the lights went off first, or if the ceiling disappeared, but now he was looking at an endless starscape, brighter than it had seemed when he was outside. His eyes were still fixed on it as he heard Rocket get out of his jumpsuit and then felt him hop onto the bed. His voice was amused. “Good luck sleepin’ with that overhead.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” Peter rolled over and pulled Rocket to him in a tight hug. He had barely been touched in any manner more personal than a handshake for the past year, and the pulse of life against his skin felt wonderful. There had been a time that this position would have meant metal studs digging into his chest, but the regenerative healing that he had bestowed on Rocket so long ago had also transformed his bionic implants. He was one hundred percent organic now, though he had lost none of his strength or ability, and he retained the upright stance and every other visible sign of his experimental origins.

There was one other change that the Light had made to his anatomy. Peter slid one hand down his belly and between his legs, and found there an organ that was neither raccoon nor human, but somewhere between. Rocket had been neutered before ever leaving the lab where he had been created, and the healing had not only restored his testicles but altered his penis to match his humanoid body. It was slender and tapered and by default contracted into his body, but Peter’s fingers could usually coax it out.

“Ya can’t keep your hands off me, huh?” Rocket mumbled.

Peter took his hand away. Rocket’s sex drive was somewhere between animal and human, too, and since he didn’t go into a rut at a certain time of year, that mostly just meant that his urges came seldom and subtly. That was okay with Peter, whose own urges had slowed down immensely after losing his mortality. He had thought that tonight would merit some celebration of the physical kind, but apparently Rocket really was tired. It could wait.

“Nah, keep goin’,” said Rocket drowsily. “Just real slow.”

Grinning, Peter went back to work. It could take ages just to get Rocket into the mood, but the challenge made it fun. Peter buried his face deep enough into his neck fur to get a kiss through, keeping his fingers moving rhythmically at Rocket’s groin. He could feel it beginning to work, and his own cock responded accordingly.

Rocket tilted his head back and started licking Peter’s stubble, which Peter loved when it was just showing affection through grooming, and even more when it happened in bed. He cupped Rocket’s face to direct him to his lips, and Rocket obligingly pushed his tongue between them and entangled it with Peter’s before pulling back and asking, “Want to get nailed?”

“Hell yes,” said Peter eagerly. He had been hoping for oral at the most.

“Lube’s on your side.”

Peter lunged for the bedside table drawer and found a tube to hand to Rocket, managing to squirm out of his flannel pants at the same time. Rocket pushed him onto his side and pressed against his back, reversing the spoon, and soon Peter felt his nimble little fingers applying a generous portion of the lube. He flinched -- Rocket was careful with his claws, but not above letting them prick here and there just out of mischief -- and then Rocket was sliding in and the stars overhead seemed to be raining down.

Peter gasped out a few words, unsure of what they were. He could feel Rocket’s skull against his spine, his nose pushing under his arm, his hand reaching across his hips. Peter caught the hand and helped it find its way onto his cock, securing it there with his own hand so that they moved together as he stroked himself in time with Rocket pumping inside him.

He knew Rocket was about to come when he heard his teeth snapping in the air, instinctively looking for something to bite but considerate enough to spare the flesh in front of him. Peter grabbed the pants he had removed earlier just in time to wad them up and place them strategically to save the sheets when he shot his own load.

Both of them made a sound remarkably similar to a growl. When Peter found himself spent, Rocket had moved higher up his back and was licking sweat off his neck, claws scraping lightly against his ribcage.

“You...heh...can’t keep your hands off me,” Peter smirked as his breath was still winding down to normal. He tossed the pants off the bed and rolled onto his back. “Damn. I needed that.”

“No kidding.” Rocket’s voice was dry, with just a touch of concern. “How’d you get wound up so tight?”

Peter folded his hands under his head. The starlight through the transparent ceiling gave him a feeling beyond peace. He hadn’t felt tightly wound at all since he had set foot on this planet, but he took it on faith that if Rocket was asking, he had noticed something that Peter hadn’t. “I told you. It’s been a long year.”

Rocket had crept to the edge of the bed and was reaching down, pressing buttons on the sideboard as he talked. “You’ve gone longer than a year without gettin’ any. Way longer.” When he came up, he was holding a pair of hot, damp cloths, one of which he dropped onto Peter’s belly. The other he used on himself, starting at his face and going down.

“It’s not not gettin’ any,” said Peter. “I get unbalanced without you. Tension builds up. It’s a basic psychological thing, I’m pretty sure.” He finished with his towel and leaned over to Rocket’s side. “Open the laundry drawer.”

The drawer opened and the towels went in, but Rocket sounded annoyed. “So what’d we even do this for if the only thing you got outta it is that you can’t do it?”

Peter kicked the blanket off to get underneath and opened his arm to invite Rocket closer. “You said yourself, I don’t have to live without you.”

“You said I might die someday.” He was still sitting near the edge, and Peter’s attempts at making piteous faces at him didn’t seem to be enticing him to cuddle.

“Can’t we just talk about this later? I thought you were tired.”

Rocket stared at him for a few more seconds, then sighed and lay down with his head on Peter’s chest, granting more relief to Peter’s continued need to be touched. “You want me to black the ceiling back out?” Peter asked.

“I’m nocturnal, doofus. I can sleep with the lights on.”

Peter smiled into the darkness, kissed Rocket between the ears, and turned his attention back to the stars. He blinked, or slept for a few hours, but when he opened his eyes, he was still on his back and the stars had faded into a backdrop of smudged dark colors.

Rocket’s back was still under his hand, but Rocket’s head had lifted from his chest. He was propped up on his elbows, his fur silvered by the light, his gaze steady and penetrating. “What?” Peter whispered.

“Don’t die, Pete.” He wasn’t speaking in a whisper, but in a low, clear voice.

Still half-asleep, Peter chuckled when he answered. “Them’s the breaks.”

“I mean it. You think you cursed me with some kinda burden, takin’ me along, but I ain’t tired a’ bein’ alive. We gotta see this through.”

Rocket’s fur was soft under Peter’s fingers as he stroked down his back. “As long as you’re here, I’ll be here,” he promised.

“Stay if I’m not here, too.”

Peter lifted his head off the pillow to come level with his eyes. “Rocket…”

“I wanna know you’ll stay. You can do it. You won’t go bad. A’right?”

It was exactly what Peter had asked for; Rocket was making the hard call that he couldn't make himself. It was still hard to accept. Keeping himself from succumbing to despair and evil inclinations was only part of the responsibility that going on alone would entail. He would have to continue to traverse the galaxy, finding people in need and jobs that only he could do, not hide away in this quiet paradise gardening for all eternity.

The future was always uncertain, of course. There were other immortals out there, and not all of them were like Ego. Peter also still had the power to imbue another with his immunity to aging, as far as he knew, and someday there might be the right person and circumstance to use it again. He could have other companions. But they wouldn’t be Rocket.

“Alright,” he answered, not bothering to mask the sorrow behind the word when he knew Rocket would see right through it. “I’ll stay.”

Satisfied, Rocket lowered himself again and tucked his head into the curve of Peter’s throat. When Peter woke up a second time that morning, it was to Rocket grooming his eyebrows with his tongue.

They swam in the cold river, picked a basket of berries, and introduced the youngest Groot to Terran music, played on a device that Rocket had salvaged and restored long before the oldest Groot had been born. Neither of them made any mention of how long they would stay planetside this time, but Peter knew it would be for as long as they could possibly justify, and then they would be called back out to the stars by a galaxy in need.

The sun stayed overhead all day long. Peter watched the life all around him growing strong beneath its rays, and blessed it in his heart.


	8. One Way or Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything spirals out of Peter's control. Stranded on Earth, wondering if he'll ever see Rocket again, he tries to adjust to the kind of life he never wanted to get back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So. If you're here because I just added the Peter Quill/Kitty Pryde tag and that's the ship you're into, I'm sorry. This is a Peter Quill/Rocket Raccoon fic and this chapter is an interlude where I at least try to treat the 616 pairing with respect before Peter returns to Rocket.
> 
> If you're here because you've been here the whole time because you love Peter/Rocket, I'm sorry. This is a Peter/Kitty chapter, and there's some Pocket flashbacks and star-crossed yearning mixed in, but that breakup from the previous chapters is going to take a little more time to resolve.
> 
> I think I can honestly say that this is the first bit of fanfiction I've written which is really just for me. It has to be, because who the heck else is going to enjoy this kind of plot development?

Crazy things happened in space, sometimes. You steal an orb and it turns out to be an Infinity Stone. You meet your father and he turns out to be an evil god-planet. You step into a closet to hide from the small army of Kree that’s chasing you through their star base, and it turns out to be an empathically-guided homing transporter.

Peter wished he had taken a closer look while he was in there, because unlike every other teleportation device he’d ever seen, there was no equivalent on the other side. One moment he was alone in a dark box, holding his breath to listen for a stampede coming around the corner, the next he was in a field in Missouri, not far from the center of the town where he had been born.

It wasn’t hard to conclude that the machine was designed to send the traveler “home”, meaning birthplace. Only, Earth wasn’t Peter’s home anymore, and he couldn’t argue the point with an inanimate device that was now untold light-years away.

The Guardians had been in an entirely different part of the star base at the time, and even if they happened to find the transporter, it would just send them to their respective planets of origin instead of alerting them to where he had gone. Peter felt a hard twist of anxiety in his gut when he thought of Gamora’s dead world -- did it even have an atmosphere anymore? 

At least Rocket hadn’t been with them. After six months, this was the first time Peter had found any reason to be glad that Rocket was living away from the rest of the team, and even that was tainted with the irony of where he had gone. He didn’t need a transporter to take him back to Halfworld. He had gone there himself, of his own free will.

_”Is it for Lylla?” Peter had asked, voice lowered so that the bipedal otter in the next room wouldn’t hear. He could see her through the doorway, explaining something to Drax, the scarification on her back plainly visible. He found it hard to look away; it was so fascinating to meet another creature who shared Rocket’s background._

_“It’s for all of them,” Rocket replied. “Now they’re free, they need some help gettin’ started on livin’ their own lives. I think I can do some real good here, Quill.”_

_It was the truth, and Peter was proud of him, but their last goodbye had been hard enough. In a rush he whispered the question he had to ask: “Do you want me to come with you?” Maybe Rocket would know that he meant, “Can I come with you?”, and maybe he wouldn’t._

_Rocket looked through the door at Lylla, then back at Peter. “Better you don’t,” he sighed. “They’re not gonna trust a human. Whole point of buildin’ their own village, far as they care, is that there ain’t gonna be no one there ‘cept us cyber-critter freaks.”_

_Peter had expected that, in truth. He was nodding in agreement when something occurred to him. “Wait,_ no one _…?”_

_“Groot’s stayin’ here.” Rocket bit his lip and scuffed his foot against the floor. “He wants to. An’ I think it’s better for him.” When he looked up, his eyes were glistening. “I mean, you’ll take good care of him, right?”_

_Groot was taller than Mantis and nearly as durable as his late counterpart had been, but Peter understood that he would always be Rocket’s baby. “We are Groot,” he said solemnly. “And if you miss him too much, all you have to do is call and I’ll deliver him to your doorstep.”_

Since then, he had delivered Groot twice and picked him up again twice. He himself still hadn’t set foot on Halfworld, but the village apparently accepted Groot as a courtesy, at least on a temporary basis.

Peter wondered where the teleporter would put Groot if he stumbled into it. Xandar? Planet X? Maybe he would just pop back into the Milano, where he had first awakened as a seedling. It was a distracting train of thought, but Peter had been in business long enough to not fall into the trap of worrying about the aspects of the crisis that he couldn’t yet determine. He began by taking inventory: mask, two blasters, Zune, comm, the clothes he was wearing, and some candy. The comm might not have the range to reach outside of the galaxy, but it was worth a try. 

Peter flicked it on, then froze before his finger touched a button. His friends didn’t know about the transporter, but his enemies surely did; it was on their own base. If they were still looking for him, and of course they were, any signal he sent out now was more likely to reach them than the Guardians.

He swore quietly and stashed it back in his pocket. Facing a small army by himself sounded like more fun than hanging around here finding some alternative way to get a ride, but he couldn’t expose Earth to that kind of danger. Connecting to his friends might make them a target, too.

An hour of walking got him to a store that let him use the phone; two days of cajoling and telling his story to the right people got him a flight to New York and a private audience with the Avengers. There were some new faces since the last time he had been there, but enough old ones to let him explain what had happened without being constantly interrupted by exclamations of disbelief. He did get one, which he answered with, “You know what _I_ don’t believe? All of you people riding around in those nasty-ass airplanes. I am never, ever getting into one of those things again unless the pilot shoves over so I can fly it. And now that we’re on the topic, does anyone have a spaceship to loan me?”

He had expected to field all kinds of arguments against that request, but the real obstacle they informed him about filled him with dismay: nobody on the entire planet had a spacecraft that could leave the solar system. Not Stark Industries, not SHIELD, not even NASA. Oh, they had a few individuals who had been to space, some extraterrestrial encounters in their history, even some alien technology and scientific breakthroughs that could combine to bring them toward eventual interstellar contact, but nothing that Peter could jump into and fly home. 

They did offer what help they could. Thanks to previous meetings with the Guardians, they had the means to send a message directly to the Milano, which they were about to use before Peter stopped them -- the Milano might be in Kree hands now. There was no safe way to phone home if the team didn’t phone him first.

The Avengers gave Peter a place to stay, and the resident mechanical geniuses were only too happy to sit with him, going over FTL theory and spacecraft design, hoping it would be to their mutual benefit.

At first, he thought that might be his chance. He dedicated himself to the task, sharing every tiny insight he had on space travel -- but he could see before anyone else could that it wouldn’t be enough. He knew how to fly, how to maintain, how to fix a number of mechanical problems, but he couldn’t build a lightspeed drive from a few spare parts. 

Rocket could have done it.

_”I just need another hour or so,” Peter had shouted up through the hatch to Drax. “One of the belts has to be replaced but I know we’ve got one, just have to find it.”_

_Four hours later he stomped back up to deck, shedding articles of clothing now filthy with engine grease. “No, we’re not ready for liftoff,” he barked, although nobody had done more than give him an inquiring look. “I just needed a break. I know what to do now. It’ll take a while longer but I’m sure of it this time.”_

_“Peter,” said Gamora in a coaxing tone. “Forget the repair for a moment. Do you know what I think?”_

_He threw down the tool he was holding and kicked it back toward the others. “That I should just break the damn ship myself so Rocket_ has _to come back?”_

_“Don’t say that. Halfworld needs him--”_

_“_ **I** _need him!” Peter exploded. It hadn’t been what he meant to say at all, and he tried to take it back, but after a few stammers he simply threw himself into the nearest seat, defeated. “I...we need him. All of us. The Guardians.”_

_Gamora crossed her arms and gave him an even look. “I was going to say, I think you should talk to Mantis.”_

_He declined, but when he had finally finished replacing the belt, he emerged from the engine room and there was Mantis. He sat down next to her without saying anything. As usual, she silently asked permission to read him by moving slowly enough to allow him to stop her, and he didn’t._

_“You are still in love with him,” she said when her hand had alighted on his wrist._

_“Yeah. But every time we talk, he just tells me I should find a girlfriend.” He sighed. “He won’t say it, but I’m pretty sure he’s sleeping with Lylla.”_

_“I do not know.” Mantis frowned, her antennae bobbing over her face. “Rocket said to you that he no longer felt lust. Have I misunderstood? Sexual feelings are very complicated.”_

_Peter nodded, his eyes on the floor. “He might have lied, or...something changed again. He might have chosen her over me.” He knew Mantis would have a compassionate response to that, so he spoke again before she could say it. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Him and her. I can’t blame him for going after what he wants, but I wish he would just tell me the truth.”_

_She made a contemplative hum. “There is something else.”_

_“You mean, how I’m angry at him for your sake too?” He had no trouble admitting it. One of the reasons that Rocket had broken off their relationship -- the only one that Peter could sympathize with -- was that he thought they should both turn their focus to their other loved ones, who would die too soon, while Peter and Rocket had time enough to spare for each other. Peter did want to spend every minute he could with the Guardians, and he supposed that would have cut into his time alone with Rocket if they were still together. But now Rocket had left all of them, and the days of mortal lives kept ticking away._

_Peter told Mantis all of that, and she listened attentively, despite having felt it all through him already. “We do miss him,” she said when he had finished. “It is true, this is his only chance. For you, for him, the people you know will be gone so soon.” She peered at him with those dark, liquid eyes. “The people of Halfworld will be gone even sooner.”_

He gave up on the Avengers before they gave up on him. He still offered his expertise whenever they asked for it, but as the weeks turned into months, it was more often his expertise in combat they wanted rather than in extraterrestrial mechanics. That suited him fine. They were never going to build him a ship, and fighting alongside superheroes reminded him of the life and the team that he missed so desperately.

On one of their missions, they clashed with a violent group of superpowered individuals that the Avengers referred to as “mutants”, and Peter was cornered and disarmed and then rescued in an extremely disorienting way: a girl tackled him and they both turned intangible and slid harmlessly through the floor.

When they were safe -- and alone -- she introduced herself as Shadowcat, and her nearby friends as the X-Men. “We’re mutants too,” she informed him. “Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears us, and does it _ever._ Occasionally outlaw. Don’t tell the Avengers.”

That was the beginning of a change. He had known that prejudice existed on Earth, but as there was only one intelligent race, he expected that at least the legal authorities would acknowledge all the planet’s natives as equals. The dubious social standing of the X-Men struck a chord with him that the Avengers never had. Gradually he got to know them, and they accepted him despite his non-mutant lineage. When he moved into their headquarters in Westchester, he told the Avengers that it was a private school that was hiring security guards, and they had the grace to not investigate any further.

Shadowcat reintroduced herself as Kitty, and she took a special interest in him. He told her stories and she listened with a half-smile on her face, always trying to pick out which parts were true and which were embellished or pulled from whole cloth. They were all true, of course, but Peter encouraged her skepticism by laughing or making a mischievous face after a particularly wild tale. It was easier to relate to her, that way, and he liked her company.

Anyway, she had reason to be more credulous than most about the mysteries of space. Her mutant power of intangibility was essentially unique, and a miniature dragon accompanied her everywhere that she didn’t have to pretend to be normal. When it was her turn to tell a story, she explained that “Lockheed” was an alien who had stowed away with the X-Men once and forged a telepathic bond with her.

When Peter had heard that, he let out an involuntary cry and grabbed her hands so suddenly that Lockheed roared at him, but it all came to nothing once again. The means that the X-Men had used to leave their planet were out of their control and now entirely unavailable. 

“I’m sorry,” Kitty said slowly when he had backed off and internalized the disappointment. They were sitting at the big bay window on the school’s main floor, close enough for her to place her hands back into his without drawing attention to them. “I don’t usually say this to people I like, but Peter, if I could shoot you off into space, I would do it.”

He sighed. “Thank you.”

“It’s the strangest thing. Even with all the dumb jokes you make, and the dancing and the obsession with old cartoons...I feel like I’ve never met anyone so _sad_.”

Peter stared at her, feeling adrift. “Nobody has ever said that about me. Nobody’s said anything remotely like that. I don’t think I know who I am anymore.” 

_”We’re still who we were yesterday,” Rocket had told him. “Don’t get all existential about it.”_

_It was the evening of the day they had received the news, and they had booked a hotel room just because they needed to talk privately and it was faster than making their way back to the ship. Or at least, Peter had thought the privacy was for talking. Later he found out that Rocket had been thinking in terms of shelter for Peter’s impending meltdown._

_“I didn’t want to be a god, I chose being human, I chose being like everyone else…”_

_“I know. An’ you are. Lie down.” Rocket emphasized his words by pushing Peter back until he gave in and flopped down to stare at the ceiling._

_Rocket’s hands were at his belt, making Peter lift his head to gape at him. “This is_ so _not the time.” He reached out a hand to move him off._

_Rocket swatted it away and kept unbuckling. “If this ain’t the time and if you’re a god and if everything is so different now, how come you’re as hard as a rock?”_

_It was_ good that night. It was the kind of sex that would have had them smirking at each other all through the next day under any other circumstances. Instead, they were just giving each other long looks, reaching out for the reassurance of a touch, occasionally finding a subdued smile. 

Peter knew then that he could face eternity. He wasn’t alone.

He was pathetically grateful for the way Kitty kept asking to hear more about the Guardians. He told her about their most epic moments, editing out parts like his personal connection to Ego, and about the little ways they would get on each other’s nerves after spending too long stuck in close quarters together. He described the appearance of each of them and told her what he knew about each race and origin, and how none of it mattered once they found that they were a family.

His policy had always been to speak openly about his relationship with Rocket if it came up, although he was otherwise discreet, knowing that Rocket didn’t like a spotlight on his personal life. None of that had changed when the sexual aspect of the relationship went into the past tense, but as he and Kitty grew closer, he started thinking about how he could broach the subject, never really considering why it was important that she knew.

In the end, she figured it out by herself, one day when they were walking around the grounds at night, talking about being the only Terran in space and how that had affected Peter’s love life. “So...one of these not-remotely-human people you’ve been with...cough cough, Rocket, am I right?”

He blinked. “I wasn’t sure if you even believed me that Rocket existed.”

“Of course I do. The way you say his name, it’s like, I can tell you wouldn’t make stuff up about him just for giggles. He’s pretty important to you, right?”

Peter wanted to cry. He nodded silently.

Kitty didn’t let him wallow. “So is it one of those ‘drinking game got out of hand’ stories, or did you just ask him on a date and the rest is history?”

“Somewhere in the middle, I guess. It was already over when we got separated, though. We were just friends again.”

She slipped her hand into his and swung it playfully. “Hey. Here’s a kinky question for you, Space Casanova. Have you ever done it with a human? Plain old Earth female?”

“No,” he chuckled, amusement creeping into his melancholy. “Can’t say I have.”

“Think you ever will?”

He knew what she was really asking, of course, but Peter had never settled on a response when considering what to do when they finally had the talk about where they stood with each other. Kitty was an adult, more mature than most of the adults he was used to, and she was intelligent and courageous and very conscious of her own independence. She was also beautiful and athletic, and he liked her a lot. Both of them were single. He couldn’t come up with any reason that he would be doing her a disservice by taking this in a romantic direction, but there was still some part of him that felt guilty at the thought. It was the same part that felt guilty about almost everything these days, starting from before he returned to Earth. 

So when she asked, he shrugged. “Dunno.” If that didn’t kill her interest, he would consider it again next time it came up. There was no need to rush anything.

_”I’m not going to speak for Rocket,” Peter had said to the Guardians once they were all gathered around the table, “but as far as I’m concerned, my responsibility -- the only one I care about -- is to you. As long as there’s a team, I’ll be here.”_

_“I can speak for Rocket,” deadpanned Rocket. “I’ll be here too.”_

_Drax looked around at everyone with a furrowed brow. “I don’t understand why we are discussing this.”_

_Peter exhaled a long breath, but Gamora took on Drax before he could: “They’re letting us know that things won’t change for us now that we know they’re immortal.”_

_“Who thought things would change?” asked Drax. “That assumption is...moronic.”_

_“See, that’s what I told him,” Rocket announced smugly. “He still wanted to be all cards-on-the-table about it.”_

_“No,” Peter protested, “I just....look, someday this might get weird, me not aging. And we don’t even know what else is in store. It’s okay if anyone’s having some doubts.”_

_Rocket pinned his ears and Mantis stretched out an arm to pat him, but her eyes were on Peter. “You are our captain, Peter Quill. We follow where you go. Always.”_

Nobody followed Peter on Earth. Cyclops, the X-Men’s field leader, sometimes put him in charge of a group of three or four, but their personalities clashed too much to expect it to ever turn into a permanent promotion. 

He had a feeling that they knew he kept secrets from them, and that it put up a wall that nobody was willing to climb. There was more than one telepath among the mutants, and he avoided them as much as possible - not because he thought they would divulge anything against his will, but because he couldn’t tell if they had already read him or if they were waiting for permission.

One day he took a number of deep gashes in a fight with some madman’s killer robots. He acknowledged right away that it had been his own fault, but after they had carted him back to Xavier’s with the other wounded, he staggered back to his quarters alone the moment Cyclops’s back was turned. 

When he had locked himself in, he stripped to the waist and concentrated on his wounds, one by one. A dim light infused his skin as it healed, pain flaring and then vanishing along with the signs of the injuries. Suddenly he realized how pointless it had been to hide before he did this. Everyone had seen how badly he was hurt. It was going to be plain as day that he had some secret method of restoration.

Kitty didn’t knock or try the knob before she dashed in through the closed door, her eyes wide with fear. “Peter! Are you--” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Okay. Yes you are. Okay.”

“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” he suggested, but her concern had already turned to anger, which he granted was fair enough.

“So what is this? Space medicine? You had it all along but didn’t want to share it?”

“No, it’s, it’s like Wolverine--”

“No it isn’t,” she said flatly. “Logan automatically regenerates as soon as he’s hurt. You had to run away so none of us saw what was happening. Spill, Peter.”

He reached for his shirt, took one look at it, and dropped it in the wastebasket. Kitty, who was standing by his dresser, took out a clean one for him and threw it hard at his chest. “I’m not a mutant,” he said as he pulled it over his head. “But I’m not fully human either. I don’t really understand how my powers work. I can use them on myself because, well, the damage has already been done. Don’t ask me to risk it with anyone else.”

Kitty shifted, crossing her arms tight against her middle. “What damage?”

“Please just believe me. You know I don’t belong here, but I’m trying to make it work--”

“You’re not.” Her voice was accusatory. “You haven’t put one iota of effort into making it work.” She lifted both hands to gesture at the room around them. “Do you even live here, or is this just where you’re crashing until you manage to get away from us?”

Before answering, Peter looked around. The furniture and necessities were all the generic standard that every room in this building shared. There was a boom box and a few retro toys, all of them gifts from Kitty, beside the rack containing the few possessions he had brought from space. The only thing he had added to the room on his own was the clutter, and even that was limited to some clothes on the floor and a few dirty dishes. She was right. He had never truly moved in.

“I’m not trying to get away from you.” He stood up, came closer to her, and cupped his hand around her face. “I would never want to get away from you.”

She closed her eyes and breathed like she was trying to steady herself, but when her hand touched his, it was to move it away from her cheek. “I know,” she said, and her eyes opened and stared him down. “It’s not about me.”

“Nothing on this planet matters more to me than you do--”

“That is _not okay!_ ” she yelled. “You think I want to be the one redeeming quality of your crap life? The X-Men are my people! This planet is my home! I fight for it because I care about it, and if all you can see is a prison, then...neither of us is ever going to be happy together.”

_The rules had changed after the breakup. Peter had expected that once they cooled off after the initial fight, things would revert to the way they had been before sex entered the equation, but instead they reverted to the kind of friendship they had built in their first few months of knowing each other. Rocket no longer slept near him, ever, and he avoided even the kind of touches that Peter would have thought were strictly platonic. He didn’t make a fuss, just dodged Peter’s hand so smoothly that it looked like he hadn’t noticed it._

_It was a difficult pill for Peter to swallow. He felt like he was being singled out until he realized that this was exactly how Rocket acted with the rest of the Guardians. From the beginning, even a friend was only allowed to pet him if they, or he, were deeply upset. Peter’s special liberties had been granted to him only as the first stage of his ascension to the lover status. Now everything was revoked._

_There was a trade-off, though. Rocket had gained a sort of kindness in the way he spoke, not consistently, but enough to offer a few sincere words of support when Peter needed them: “We’re in this together” or “It’s all gonna work out, you’ll see.”_

_The epiphany came to Peter in slow motion, but it did eventually land. Rocket wasn’t pushing him away. The love they had shared wasn’t gone. Peter doubted that he would ever stop yearning for the intimate expression of that love, but he wasn’t going to let himself be worthless without it._

_He still wondered about the mixtape, though. Rocket had played it nonstop for the first week, but after the breakup, it had disappeared. Peter was sure he wouldn’t have thrown it away, so what was the story? Nearly every day he thought about asking, just casually dropping it into a conversation as if he had only recently remembered it: “Hey, do you still have that tape I made you?” Maybe he could come up with an excuse, like, “I can’t find another clone of ‘Convoy’,” or “Who was that woman who sang Track 1?”_

_Every day, he had to tell himself it wasn’t time yet._

He brought Kitty flowers the next day, and told her he was going to find an apartment of his own and that he would like her help figuring out what kind of work he could get paid for, if she wouldn’t mind.

“What’s this all about?” she asked, lifting her nose from the bouquet. 

“I don’t know. As far as I can tell it’s just going to be one long lesson in humility. But it’s a start, right?”

She turned away and busied herself putting the flowers in a vase on her dresser. Lockheed was tapping at the window and squalling, so she pushed him gently through the glass, and she and Peter watched him fly away. Finally, she said, “It’s a start, yeah. I’m just wondering what changed your mind.”

“You were right.” He shrugged. “I can’t just keep killing time while I wait for the next alien invasion. I have to accept whatever life I can have where I am.”

“Acceptance is different than losing hope.” She touched his cheek, like he had done to her the day before. “I want to see who you are without the sadness. I want to be just one of the things on Earth you care about. And someday someday, maybe maybe, I want you to show me the stars.”

He thought again about the wall he had constructed around himself, and felt suddenly dazzled by a realization that should have been obvious: Kitty could walk through walls.

In the next moment they were kissing, and she was pushing his coat off of his shoulders, and he was cradling her head and pressing closer to her before recalling himself and taking a step back. “Kitty. Before this gets any further, you should know what you’re dealing with here.”

She rolled her eyes. “You remember when you told me about your juicy history with a cybernetic raccoon and I didn’t bat an eye? What else have you got that you think I can’t take?”

It was so hard to talk now that he had tasted her lips. He wished he had arranged to make his confessions before it got to this point. “I’m…”

Seconds went by, and Kitty threw her hands up. “You’re what? Married? Contagious? Expensive? Transgender? A really ineffective assassin? _What?_ ”

“Immortal.”

Her eyes went as big as saucers. Peter wished that Lockheed had stayed in the room, just to break the silence with a squawk or a flap of his wings. He dropped his head and rubbed his eyes.

“How old are you?” Kitty asked softly.

“So far not much older than I look. But it’s part of what I got from my father. That’s the, you know, the damage I was talking about. If I try to heal someone else I might make them immortal too.”

“Oh.” She sat down on her bed and folded her hands in her lap. “I never would have thought. You’ve always acted like you’re in such a big hurry, when really you have all the time in the world.”

“Because of the Guardians,” he said miserably. “I’ve got time, but they don’t. Every day I’m away from them is another day I’ll never get back. They might be dead already.” Should he tell her that it didn’t apply to Rocket? No, that wasn’t relevant. Anyway, Rocket might be dead too. “You wanted to know who I really am. This is me, Kitty. Everyone around me is dying, and I don’t know how to stop seeing it.”

The compassion in Kitty’s eyes was colored with fear, but she patted the bed beside her. “So now I know, at least. Come sit down. We’ll figure this out.”

He came and sat down, but couldn’t help casting her a wary look. “You’re not going to ask me to give you immortality, are you?”

She shook her head. “No. But if I’m dying, I want to live first.” When she kissed him again it was longer and slower, as if they had all the time in the world.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Kitty was woken by her phone vibrating on the bedside table. She sat up groggily, thinking about how she had to talk Peter into spending the night at Xavier’s with her once in awhile, so she wouldn’t have to always be the one making her way back there from his apartment. They’d had that talk before, though, and it always turned into him trying to talk her into moving in with him permanently. 

It was pouring rain outside, and Lockheed had crawled under the blankets at her feet and made a grumpy noise at her when she moved them. She shushed him and blinked until she could see the message on her phone.

Her heart caught in her throat when she read it. After a split second of indecision, she put her hand on her sleeping partner’s shoulder and shook. “Peter. Peter, wake up.”

He opened his bleary eyes and gave her a bleary smile. “Hey, beautiful gorgeous sugar princess.”

“There’s an unidentified spaceship over Manhattan.”

Every trace of sleep was instantly gone from his manner. He jerked upright, letting the blankets fall from his bare chest and placing a firm hand on her back.

She flicked open the email to show him. “It hasn’t made any attempt at contact yet. They haven’t -- wait, here’s a picture.”

Peter took the phone from her hand as she offered it, and she held her breath as he enlarged the picture and peered closely at it. He put the phone down on his lap and looked her in the eye before he spoke. “That’s a Kree battleship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a huge fan of the original X-Men comics and Kitty was always one of my favorites, so no smack talking her. The last I read in the modern comics, she and Peter were engaged, but I'm sure by now things are drastically different and I'm not that interested in catching up.
> 
> The title is from a song by Blondie, the "Track 1" on Rocket's mixtape that Peter references.


	9. Plunge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rocket's trying to get over some personal issues with intimacy; Peter's trying to help. It's new ground for both of them.
> 
> This doesn't pick up where the last chapter leaves off, and to be honest, I'm not really sure where in the timeline it takes place. Probably before they've found out about their immortality, but definitely after they've established a secure exclusive relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been frustrated by the lack of Roquill in this Roquill fic, today's your lucky day! The story of how they come back together after Peter's time on Earth will come later, but for now, please enjoy this interlude of porn, cuddling, and space boyfriends actually communicating and enjoying each other's company.

It wasn’t a job that required the full team, and not everyone was interested. Peter probably wouldn’t have found the reward worth the effort himself, except that it seemed like a good opportunity to get a couple days alone with Rocket -- _truly_ alone, since the job was on the untouched part of a planet that was barely populated even on its civilized hemisphere.

Rocket accepted the invitation without revealing whether he was in it for the money or the date, and now they were trekking through a verdant jungle in the late afternoon shade. The destination was a few hours’ walk ahead, and all they had to do was collect some natural resources without fighting anyone for them, so the gear they had brought was limited to outdoor equipment rather than any cumbersome weapons. It was a peaceful atmosphere, just right for talking at a normal volume about very personal subjects.

“I wouldn’t get mad if you asked me to try it, y’know,” said Rocket, testing the stability of a fallen log and then using it to cross a stream. “Switchin’ places. Bein’ on the bottom.”

“You assume I want you to try it,” Peter countered. He gave the same log a more robust test before standing on it. Just because Rocket made something look easy didn’t mean he could do it. “If you’re not interested, I wouldn’t ask.”

Rocket turned around to wait for him on the other side. “But you like it,” he said, with just a hint of a question in his voice.

Peter had to leap the last few feet, where the log got slipperier. He landed heavily and held out his arms to balance before the weight of his backpack swayed him backward. “Yeah, I love it. So where’s the problem?”

They set off again down a path that Rocket picked, but not before he had cast an indignant look up at Peter. “Usually when you’ve got somethin’ good, you share it with me.”

Peter snorted. “Usually when I’ve got something good, you steal it from me before I have a chance to share it.”

“Well sure, that was my first thought, but then, I mean...how?”

“How what? How to...steal...being anally penetrated?” Peter ducked under a low-hanging branch. “Wow. I didn’t think that could sound any more insane out loud than it did in my head, but I was wrong.”

Rocket seemed to glide across the ground in front of him, nothing getting in his way. He didn’t look back to reply, “But you don’t wanna give it to me, so forget about it.”

“Hey. Come on. For as long as we’ve been screwing you’ve only ever said you don’t want anything going in your ass. And honestly I don’t think it’s safe. I’m too big. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That ain’t any big deal,” said Rocket, shaking his head. “If there was any damage you could just heal me with the Light. I only said no before ‘cos I was...I was…” He coughed. “Whole idea of it kinda scares me.”

They had come to a steep incline set with boulders. Rocket squeezed between them and appeared again on the other side, looking down. Peter had to scale them. “I don’t want to scare you, either,” he grunted. He had to wonder how the conversation had even gotten to this point, but then, he often had that thought when talking to Rocket.

“It ain’t all about what you want.”

Peter hoisted himself up to Rocket’s level and dusted off his jacket. He was beginning to think he understood. “You want to do it _because_ it scares you.”

He was definitely onto something, judging from the way Rocket started rubbing his hands anxiously and walking close by Peter’s side instead of ahead. “You know how sometimes, you can be all worried or freaked about somethin’, and then it never comes and you think, ‘oh, I never even had to worry’?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah.”

“In the lab…” He hesitated. He almost always hesitated after beginning a sentence that way. “In the lab, whatever I was scared of, it happened. Sooner or later, it always happened. And the next time it would just be worse, ‘cos I knew more about what was comin’, and I couldn’t ever tell myself maybe there was a chance it was all gonna be okay.”

They hadn’t stopped walking, so Peter wasn’t sure how best to go about comforting him. Then something beeped, a little attachment dangling from Rocket’s backpack. Peter jumped at the sudden sound, but Rocket unclipped the device and stopped as soon as he had looked at its screen. “We’re here.”

“We’re where?” said Peter before remembering that they had come with a purpose. Rocket was veering off to the left, still watching his device, and Peter followed until they pushed through a curtain of vines and came to a round, crystal-clear pool, about thirty feet across.

The sun had begun to sink as they were walking, and now that they were deeper under the canopy, twilight seemed to be official. Peter couldn’t see too well, but there was some natural phosphorescence in the foliage and in the pool, lending a sporadic glimmer to the grove. He looked down at Rocket and smiled. “Pretty.”

Rocket made a noncommittal sound of agreement, then pointed at the aquatic plants floating on the surface of the pool. “That’s what we want.” Each one had a blossoming pod the size of a basketball, atop a wide green pad. “On the inside there’s a seed that works like a power source for organic fiber production. Contract says we gotta get at least ten.”

Peter had known all that -- he was the one who had told Rocket, in fact -- but he didn’t say so, just slung his backpack down and opened it to look for their tools.

“It’s alright, I got it,” said Rocket. His own pack was already off, and he was squinting at the floating plants and using both hands to aim a small cylindrical tool at one. As Peter watched, a fine strand shot out of the tube and buried itself in the pod, and Rocket pressed something to reel it across the water to settle on the shore at his feet.

“Cool!” Peter exclaimed as Rocket hauled his catch out to inspect it. “Can I try?”

“No, I only brought one.” Rocket was already aiming at another target.

“Let me take a turn and then you can have it back.”

“You’re half blind right now. I don’t wanna waste the charge if you miss.”

Peter frowned and knelt next to the pod that Rocket had captured, prying into the top of it just to keep his hands busy. Underneath the husk, the imperfect sphere was full of a cool, translucent white gel, with the valuable seed just barely visible at its center.

“They eat that stuff on the other side of this world, ya know,” said Rocket conversationally. “It’s got no nutrition but it’s totally sterile so it can save you if you need moisture. Got a million different uses, they say.”

“I know,” Peter grumbled. “I did do the research. All of it.”

Rocket shrugged and cast his line out again. “Whatever.”

“If you think I can’t aim in the dark, why don’t we just make camp and get the pods tomorrow?”

A plant came speeding toward them, reaching the water’s edge with a splash. Rocket sighed dramatically. “Alright, you can do one. Don’t screw it up.” 

He held out the grappling tube, and Peter lurched to his feet to accept it, forgetting that his hands were slippery from reaching into the pod. The tube slid instantly out of his grasp and plopped into the water.

Before Peter had a chance to curse his clumsiness, Rocket had followed the device, diving headfirst into the pool. Peter shouted his name. It was too dark to guess how deep the water was, let alone catch sight of Rocket. He began wrenching his boots off, but he hadn’t even managed the first one when the line from the grappling tube surfaced, flew over the ground, and anchored in the nearest tree. Rocket emerged at the other end of it, letting go as soon as he had his feet on solid ground. He gave himself a half-hearted shake and then remained in a tired crouch, dripping and panting.

Peter grabbed him around the middle and set him down at a safer, drier distance from the pool. “Don’t pull shit like that!” he yelled. “Stupid little fishing line isn’t worth risking your life!”

Rocket looked up wearily. “Riskin’ my…? Pete, I’m fine. I was in there like ten seconds tops.”

“You’re soaking wet right when it’s getting cold. And that’s not the point. You fucking scared me. I didn’t even know if you could swim.”

“‘Course I can swim. Always used to be kinda hard ‘cos the metal parts killed my buoyancy, but…” He hugged his arms around himself, clearly beginning to feel the cold already.

Peter blew out a frustrated breath and went back to his bag. They hadn’t brought anything like a towel, but they were right on a nice flat patch of grass, so they wouldn’t have to travel any farther before making camp. Peter took out one of his own shirts and told Rocket to undress while he set up the shelter, and Rocket, for once, cooperated. After peeling off his wet jumpsuit, he shook himself again, more vigorously this time, and then put the shirt on like an oversized nightgown.

The “tent” in Peter’s pack was contained in four equilateral cables. Rocket had designed it, so he talked Peter through laying down the lines in a large square on the ground, and then activated them so that a force field wall sprang up at an angle from each one and met in the middle, turning the square into a pyramid. He entered another command, and the glowing grid lines of the walls were replaced by opaque grey. It would keep out wind and rain, Rocket said, although it would probably collapse if one of them were to push it too hard.

Rocket remotely opened one of the walls and took his bag inside, and Peter gathered up his own gear, then made an extra trip for the three pods that they had collected so far. When they were both inside and the tent was sealed up, he found Rocket fiddling with the controls of another instant structure, this one bed-sized and bed-shaped and sturdy enough for their combined weight. Peter sat down to test it and was surprised by how comfortable the top layer was. “This is awesome,” he said. “Is there anything you can’t invent?”

The praise seemed to have the right effect on Rocket. He was setting up yet another tool, a palm-sized stone that emitted heat along with a flickering orange light, but when he finished, he gathered up the loose folds of the t-shirt and joined Peter on the bed. “I shoulda let you use the grapple line,” he said. “Sorry.”

Peter laid a hand on his head and found it still damp, although the heat was starting to steam him dry. “It’s okay,” said Peter. “Sorry I dropped it.”

Rocket gave him a sideways, curious look. “It really scared you when I went in?”

“Yeah. But sometimes, the thing you’re scared of never happens.” 

Comprehension seemed to alight in Rocket’s eyes. He started to climb into Peter’s lap, and Peter pulled him the rest of the way, cradling his head against his chest and stroking him over the t-shirt. He felt warm all over, like they were melting into each other. Peter toed his boots off, letting the grass tickle the soles of his feet through his socks. “You can tell yourself it’s all gonna be okay,” Peter murmured close to Rocket’s ear. “It is gonna be okay.” He felt rather than saw him nod in response, head tucked into the curve of Peter’s throat.

Putting one hand up the shirt to settle on Rocket’s back, Peter parted his knees a little so he could reach between them with the other hand. Rocket’s tail instantly clamped over his anus, an obviously instinctive reaction. He only clung more tightly to Peter, though, so instead of attempting to release him, Peter left that hand innocuously at the small of his back and renewed his efforts with the other one, rubbing circles on Rocket’s neck and shoulders. He knew what worked, he told himself. He knew how to make Rocket feel safe. He could do this.

They went on like that for longer than Peter could measure, certainly longer than their foreplay usually lasted. He wasn’t even sure it counted as foreplay, but he was enjoying it, and he thought Rocket was making some progress. Each time he tensed up, he would relax a little sooner, until finally Peter’s thumb was stroking beneath his tail and he wasn’t flinching at all.

The nearest pod was just close enough for Peter to lean down and dip his hand into the top without dislodging Rocket. He thought it was clear enough what he was doing, but Rocket had his eyes closed, so Peter moved as slowly as possible and said, “This might feel a little cold,” which ought to be more than enough to remove any element of surprise. He passed his hand between his knees again, underneath Rocket.

Rocket began breathing heavily as soon as Peter’s lubricated finger returned to his ass. He clutched at Peter’s clothes, taking handfuls of his shirt and then letting go and grabbing a different place instead. “No hurry,” Peter reminded him. “Tomorrow is fine. Ten years is fine. Never is fine.”

“No, I’m ready now. Do it.” 

Peter’s index finger slid in easily up to the first joint. It was hardly anything, really, but Rocket squirmed and snapped his teeth in the air and even made a little whine, a heartbreaking sound no matter what it meant.

“If you need to bite, go ahead and bite,” said Peter.

Rocket looked up with one skeptical eye. “Really?”

“Why do you think I kept my jacket on? Just don’t go for anywhere that bleeds.”

He didn’t have to reassure him again before he felt jaws closing on his shoulder. Rocket’s love-bites could range from feather-light nips to new scars, but this was something different -- the primal impulse of a trapped animal. Peter could feel his teeth through the leather in a grip strong enough that they might leave a bruise, but it didn’t last for long. Rocket let go with a sigh and moved to lick Peter’s neck and jawline instead, and Peter kissed between his eyes and then pushed his finger deeper.

It didn’t seem like it caused him any discomfort this time, but his cock was still sheathed, so he wasn’t turned on yet, either. His only visible reaction was to sit up straighter, but a heartbeat later, his hands were busy unfastening Peter’s belt.

Peter’s cock jumped, and he removed his other hand from inside the t-shirt to cover Rocket’s two hands. “Let’s just concentrate on you for now.”

Rocket complied, but then said hesitantly, “It helps, though. The distraction.”

“Oh.” Peter hadn’t considered that it might be useful for Rocket to occupy himself with something other than his own body, but his cock was definitely on board with the idea and straining to be free. “Okay.”

It was the work of a few seconds for Rocket’s deft hands to get Peter’s belt off and pants unzipped, and his mouth and both hands were on his cock as soon as it sprang up. Peter moaned; Rocket must have had some kind of instinct for this that guided him as much as Peter’s instructions had in the time they had spent together. He knew where to slide his tongue, when to drop a hand down to fondle his balls, how to bring Peter right to the edge by engulfing the head and stroking the shaft at the same time. 

As a distraction, it definitely went both ways. Peter tried to bring his attention back to the hand he still had delving into Rocket’s hole, and determining whether Rocket was enjoying it yet or whether his growing erection had more to do with his sensitive hands touching Peter. Conscious of the instincts still in play, Peter put a hand under his chin and steered it away from where another bite could do any damage, and then pushed his finger in as far as it would go.

Rocket squealed. Peter stroked him, nervously murmuring, “Are you okay? Just tell me, baby, tell me if it’s too much, I got you, it’s okay, it’s okay…”

“It doesn’t hurt,” said Rocket, shaking his head. “It was okay before but now...now it’s _good._ ”

Peter breathed a sigh of relief. He looked down at the shirt tenting at Rocket’s groin. “Yeah it is,” he said. “Gimme a kiss.”

Rocket obligingly swiped his tongue into his mouth while Peter rocked his hips to rub their cocks together. “So now,” said Rocket, his words punctuated with soft gasps, “are you gonna fuck me?”

“Not tonight.” He couldn’t help feeling a little regret about that decision. Rocket’s passage felt so tight and hot around his finger that his imagination was running wild, but he wasn’t yet convinced that it was safe to go all the way, and anyway, Rocket needed adequate time and care to get over his phobia. 

Rocket whined, a much more human sound than the fearful one he had made earlier. “But I want it.”

“I’m in charge right now and I say we take it slow.” Peter stole another kiss to make nice. “But I’ll tell you what I am gonna do.” He matched his actions to his words as he kept talking. “I’m gonna lay you down on your back, right here.” His finger slipped out of Rocket’s ass, and Rocket snarled like a dog having his favorite bone taken away. Peter stifled a laugh at the thought. “And I’m gonna take my shirt off you so I can see you. And then I’m gonna take my shirt off me, so I can feel you.” Bare-chested and still preoccupied with a raging hard on, he stooped over Rocket and nuzzled his face, and Rocket dug his claws into his nipple, apparently taking his revenge for not getting what he had asked for.

Peter moved to kneel beside the bed, keeping at the right level to hover over Rocket, glad to find that the heater had kept the grass beneath him from getting damp. He devoted his left hand to his own cock, and dipped the other one back into the gel of the open pod. “And now,” he said. Rocket was naked and spread-eagled and watching him expectantly. “Now, I’m going to put this right back here where you like it, and…” 

Instead of finishing, he filled his mouth with Rocket’s cock and sucked hard while sliding his finger in and out of his ass. Rocket screamed with feral ecstasy. Peter came, almost before he had really gotten started, but that just freed up his hand so he could touch Rocket’s face and neck and belly while Rocket was pulling at his hair and gasping incomplete thoughts about how it was good, good, Peter, Peter, more, yes…

Peter held onto him tightly as he ejaculated, swallowing as fast as it came and thinking he had never felt Rocket tremble so hard during a climax. When he had climbed back onto the bed to lay down beside him, he saw with shock that there were tears in Rocket’s eyes. 

“That was the best one yet,” Rocket confided, pawing at his face.

Peter curled his body around him, hugging him to his chest. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t be dense. You already told me you were scared, there’s no point hiding it now.”

Rocket sighed deeply and arched himself against Peter’s body. “I ain’t scared now.” He licked the back of Peter’s hand. “That...wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

Peter indulged in a little self-congratulation. “Hey, um. I still think we should go slow and I’m not kidding when I say I would have been fine if you never wanted to try it, but...I’m really glad you like it so far.”

“Mmm.” Rocket sounded a little smug himself. “Music?”

It was part of their usual ritual when they weren’t ready to sleep right afterward, but as Peter mentally went over the contents of his bag, his eyes widened. “I didn’t bring any.”

“Are you shittin’ me?”

“I guess I thought you had it. Weren’t you the last one with the Zune? Oh man.” Peter didn’t treat his musical devices like they were made of glass, but he could honestly say that this was the first time he had ever lost track of one, and it threw him for a loop.

Rocket turned around and sat up. “I always put it back when I borrow it. If you didn’t take it, it’s still by the bed at home.”

So it was safe, at least. Two days without music, though. “What are we going to do now?”

“Eat somethin’,” said Rocket firmly. “And then I guess you’re gonna have to sing.”

Peter couldn’t tell if he was joking, so after he had cleaned himself up, he focused on the eating suggestion first. As he pulled various containers of food out of his bag, he joked, “I knew you were only keeping me around to entertain you,” then stopped at the bashful look that Rocket gave him at that. “What?”

Rocket turned his attention to the food. His voice was uncertain when he responded, “I meant to give you somethin’ better than jackin’ yourself off on the ground.”

Peter had just poured a bottle of something that was almost wine into two cups that were definitely not wine glasses. He had to laugh, thinking that he had remembered to bring this but not the music. He put one of the cups into Rocket’s hands, tapped his own against it in a toast, and winked. “The night is young.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know my readers probably don't need disclaimers, but I get paranoid sometimes: This is not only a work of fiction, but a fanciful, utterly unrealistic, indulgent, trashy romance. In a real-world relationship, please don't ever assume that sexual healing is what someone needs. 
> 
> I want to portray Peter and Rocket as a loving couple, but also as a special case even in their own made-up world. What works for them isn't likely to apply to you or me.


	10. Dirty World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's exile on Earth finally comes to an end. Takes place immediately after Chapter 8.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY.
> 
> Hey everyone, how ya been? Happy New Year!

For the first time since he had been stranded on Earth, Peter was exactly the man who was needed for the job. He strode toward the runway at the Avengers Facility wearing his red coat, both blasters on his belt, his mask equipped behind his ear, his Zune and his comm in his pockets. He felt alive.

He was already talking as an array of currently active Terran superheroes, plus a few he had thought were retired, caught up with him. “The Kree Empire has conquered planets more advanced than yours in a matter of days. They don’t always attack without provocation, but when they do, they’re ruthless, bloodthirsty, and practically unstoppable.” He stopped near the shadow of the hovering ship and turned around. The grass squelched underfoot from that morning’s rain, but everyone looked armed and ready for battle, whether they had come from nearby vehicles or the base itself. They were waiting for him to continue. “What you’ve got here isn’t an invasion. First thing we need is to find out if it’s likely to become one.”

“How are we supposed to communicate with it?” a stranger called out from near the back of the crowd.

Peter shook his head. “We wait for it to communicate with us. If it hasn’t sent out a signal yet, it’s probably looking for somewhere to land.” He squinted up at the sky, then around the spacious property. “Get someone on each of the rooftops. Bring those fighter planes into a tighter circle, and have a few ready to take their places. We might be here a while.”

A flash of pale color made him whip his head around, and he raised his forearm just in time for Lockheed to perch on it and squall at him. Peter brought the dragon closer to his body and murmured, “If Kitty’s mad I’ll make it up to her later. Just watch her back for me, okay?”

Lockheed glared, but when he launched himself from Peter’s shoulder and flew away, Peter had the impression that he had understood and agreed. As far as he knew, Lockheed could comprehend English perfectly, although he never gave so much as a nod in response, and watching Kitty’s back would have been what he wanted to do anyway. Kitty might not even be mad about being left behind, since she knew he knew she would just follow regardless of what he had to say about it. He was less worried about her getting hurt in battle than he was about her mutant powers being discovered by the Avengers, and she had the sense to be worried about that too and stay out of sight.

Half the fighters and a few government spokespeople were headed to the rooftops; the rest were spreading out into formations on the ground. Some asked Peter questions, but they didn’t overrule him on anything. 

He was trying to stay in the moment, but he couldn’t help wondering if this was his ticket off the planet. Once he had dealt with the invaders, he could take a look inside the ship, see if he could fly it on his own or at least use its communication system, see if Kitty could learn to navigate...the vision kept expanding the longer he looked at the ship. It was fitting, he thought, that it was Kree. All of the times they had clashed with the Guardians aside, it was a Kree ship that had brought him here, and maybe now one would bring him home.

A warning came down from the SHIELD fleet, saying that the spacecraft was moving, and Peter’s daydream dissipated. First he had to deal with the invaders, and whatever was going on here, it wouldn’t be as simple as killing them and taking their ride. More would come. Earth had never become his home, but it was still his responsibility. 

“Time for a warning shot,” he said into his comm. “Any standard weapon will work. Make it a direct hit, it shouldn’t even damage the hull--”

“Sir.” It was the voice of one of the pilots. Before Peter could decide what to make of being called ‘sir’, the man continued in a confused, questioning tone: “It’s transmitting directly to our radios.”

It was also descending. Nobody had fired a shot. “Transmitting what?” Peter demanded.

A different voice answered him. “It’s, uh. It’s classic American rock music. We’ll patch you in.”

The Kree spacecraft was extending landing gear, its shadow engulfing the vacant runway beneath it. The raucously upbeat opening chords of a very familiar song began to play into Peter’s ear.

_He loves your sexy body, he loves your dirty mind…_

Peter froze, but only for half a second. “ _ROCKET!_ ” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, then took off running.

_He loves when you hold him, grab him from behind._

It was a long stretch of grass and pavement to cover, but he couldn’t have slowed down if he tried. The ship was on the ground now, its frontal hatch about to open. Peter was dimly aware of Avengers yelling at him, maybe even trying to catch up to him. They didn’t stand a chance. 

The music was blasting from external speakers on the ship itself, now. Peter ripped the comm off of his ear and threw it down.

_Ohhh baby, the pleasure’d be all mine  
If you let me drive your pickup truck   
And park it where the sun don’t shine…_

As the distance closed between Peter and the ship, a ramp began to drop directly in front of him, and he wasn’t imagining it, that was no Kree standing at the opening. “Rocket!” he called out again with what little breath he had left, and the undersized furry figure moved like lightning, darting forward and leaping off the ramp before it had finished lowering.

He landed on Peter’s chest, knocking him back onto the wet grass, solid and real and warm and alive. Peter threw his arms around him and held on so tight he sent them into a roll, muddying his clothes, laughing and crying at the same time. “You found me. You found me.”

_Every time he touches you, his hair stands up on end  
His legs begin to quiver, and his mind begins to bend…_

Rocket had to squirm halfway free before they could get a good look at each other. Peter obligingly stayed lying on his back, but kept both hands resting lightly on Rocket’s shoulders. Rocket was kneeling on his chest, hands on his collarbone as if pinning him down, and smiling with his whole face, lips and ears and whiskers, as only Rocket could. His eyes were glistening. “‘Course I did, loser.”

If anyone else was trying to say anything to Peter, they were drowned out by the music still booming from the ship: the playful 80’s tune that he had so carefully selected for Rocket’s mixtape. That must have been years ago now. Rocket hadn’t forgotten.

_He loves your sense of humor. Disposition, too.  
There’s absolutely nothing that he don’t love about you._

Realizing suddenly that the significant number of people watching this probably couldn’t tell if they were hugging or fighting, Peter pushed himself up to sitting, and Rocket shifted off of him and stood on the ground. It was time for the hard part. Peter swallowed and asked, “Where’s everyone else?”

“Not dead,” said Rocket promptly, to Peter’s eternal gratitude. He tapped a controller he had taken from his pocket, and the music from the ship turned off. “Got a long story to tell ya, later. Got a lot of ‘em. Team’s alright but I couldn’t bring anyone along ‘cept me and Groot.”

Peter lurched to his feet, automatically adjusting his stance as Rocket vaulted up to his shoulders. “Groot’s here?!” He strode toward the open hatch. “Groooot!”

The tree that emerged was at least half a foot taller than he had been last time they had seen each other. Peter broke into tears again and ended up limp in a pair of wooden arms, needing Groot to support his full weight, when they met at the foot of the ramp. Rocket straddled both of their shoulders, his tail curled around Peter’s neck. “How...how did you get so big,” Peter mumbled. “So long...I’m so sorry…”

“I am Groot,” said Groot, and for an instant that was all that Peter understood from the words, and he was afraid he had lost his comprehension of his friend. Then the atrophied linguistic skill came back, imperfectly but enough to get the essential meaning. Gratitude flowed in along with it.

Rocket’s words were a kind of echo to Groot’s. “It’s alright. We gotcha back now. We’re goin’ home.”

Overwhelmed by the truth of it, Peter stepped back from the group hug, leaving his hand flat on Groot’s bark. The fantasy that he had dismissed came back to him, but better: he wouldn’t even have to deal with any invaders. All he had to do was board and fly away.

He nodded, but turned his back on the ship. “There’s some stuff I need to take care of. I guess I’ve got a few long stories for you too.”

“Damn right you do. Startin’ with how the hell you managed to strand yourself here. C’mon, lead the way, I wanna at least get some Terran pizza outta this.”

It was easy enough to pacify the crowd with a few words of reassurance and explanation, but a new arrival was coming through, someone who made the Avengers and their allies step aside deferentially. With mixed relief and trepidation, Peter saw first that a familiar Rolls Royce had pulled up on the runway, and then that the superheroes were making way for a man in a wheelchair who had come from the car, and then that the wheelchair was being pushed by none other than Kitty Pryde, out of costume, just a student accompanying her distinguished professor. 

Peter met her eyes a second before Lockheed reappeared and swooped down onto Groot’s shoulder, not even acknowledging Kitty. The onlookers would probably think that the little dragon had come with Rocket’s ship rather than the X-Men representatives, which was a smart move. Professor Charles Xavier could come up with any number of non-mutant-related reasons to be here, so everyone’s secret was still safe.

Kitty gave Peter a look, lifting one hand from the wheelchair handle to beckon. They had stopped at the edge of the pavement, since Peter was still on the grass, so he headed that way and Rocket shrugged and followed. Groot stayed behind, scratching Lockheed’s nose and introducing himself to everyone.

“Professor,” he greeted Xavier, making a futile attempt to brush some of the mud off of his coat.

The telepath nodded and replied, “Unusual circumstances, I see, Star-Lord.”

Rocket crossed his arms and eyed Xavier up and down. “You gotta be kiddin’ me. You people can’t even cure partial paralysis?” 

Peter made a mental note to return to the topic, but Kitty was still giving him that steady, silent look, and he stepped forward, reaching for her hand. “Kitty, I know this all looks pretty crazy, but for starters I just want you to meet someone--”

“Hey.” Kitty dipped her head at Rocket with a half-smile. “I’m not coming in blind here, Peter. I know this is Rocket.”

Of course she did. Peter looked back over his shoulder and saw that Groot and Lockheed were still keeping the attention of most, and the others seemed to be deliberately giving him and Rocket some space to talk to Xavier and Kitty. He caught Rocket’s eye and got a subtle gesture of permission, so he pulled Kitty to the side and addressed her in a low voice: “We can take a few days before we go. And if you don’t want to be gone too long just name your limit. Whatever you need.”

She understood perfectly what he meant, not a shadow of surprise or confusion crossing her face. Nevertheless, she answered, “What if I need to not be gone at all?”

“What?” He stared hard at her. “Kitty, this is it. I’m gonna show you the stars. Just like we always talked about.”

“I can’t.” Her voice was full of remorse, and she chanced a quick look at Rocket and then a longer one at Groot and the Kree ship behind him, and shook her head. “I just saw you, really saw you, for the first time. I wasn’t sure if I could leave this world in the first place, but...I can’t do it with a stranger.”

Stricken, Peter placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to speak steadily. “I’m still me. I’m still your man. Don’t you trust me?”

“Yes. Always.” She slid a hand behind his neck to pull his face down to hers, but then gave him only a light kiss on the cheek, and stepped back from him. “But you’re not my man anymore.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Rocket’s battleship, Peter soon learned, had been stolen not long after Peter’s disappearance. Rocket had managed to keep it far enough away from the original owners that he was never caught, while at the same time using it to travel through Kree-controlled areas without being inspected too closely. He had been using it to search for Peter the entire time.

“How did you know to come to Earth?” Peter asked as he dropped his bag in the living area of the ship. There were four bunks, three of which hadn’t been used since the ship had been in Rocket’s hands, but one had already been set up for him with a bed and a cabinet and a boom box. “Did you find the teleporter that sent me here?”

“No,” said Rocket, who had been following him as he explored. “That what happened?” he added with idle curiosity. “We gave up on tracin’ your path. I just figured I could start checkin’ out some of your old haunts.”

It would have been a long shot, flying across the universe to Earth with no evidence that Peter was anywhere near there. He had only Rocket’s instincts to thank. “No wonder the whole team didn’t come,” he mused.

Rocket hopped up on the bed, prompting Peter to sit down beside him. There was some regret in his voice, some remnants of a story too long to get through in a day. “We all had to split up, cover enough ground to matter. Gamora went off on her own, had Nebula with her for a while but then Kraglin said he was gonna help and Ol’ Blue decided he needed her more. Anyways Gamora’s got that boyfriend now. I think they’re still together.”

“Lars?” Peter barely remembered him.

“Yeah. See, thing is, Pete…” Rocket sighed in frustration. “Stuff got in the way. Lars was gonna do whatever ‘Mora wanted to do, but then she had to rescue him and ended up neck-deep in his shady past. Mantis picked up some kinda worshippers, this cult that says she’s the Celestial Madonna. Whatever that means. Drax is pretty much stuck playin’ full-time bodyguard for her. Me ‘n Groot were the only ones who could drop everything an’ look for you.”

Peter began stroking him, just like he used to -- he remembered that they had stopped doing this after they broke up, but he knew without needing to ask that it was okay and expected once again. “We’ll get them all back. Don’t worry. We’re not gonna let our family fall apart now.”

Rocket looked up with his ears at a cautious angle and his hands wringing in his lap. “I was afraid you wouldn’t wanna leave. I know ya...ya got a life here and all. That mutant who likes you.” He suddenly tensed up under Peter’s hand. “It ain’t too late. Now we know where you are...you could stay. If it’s what you want.”

“No.” The answer came out quick, but it was in response to the offer and not to soothe Rocket’s obvious anxiety. Peter wasn’t going to deny that he had regrets about leaving Earth and Kitty, and that just made it all the more important that he was sure about the choice he was making. It was for his own sake, and not because his friend’s moment of vulnerability had goaded him into it. “Kitty wouldn’t take me back now if I begged. I’ll miss her but it had to end sometime. She’s mortal. She’s where she belongs.” 

“And you’re not?”

“Soon as we launch, I will be.” He felt Rocket relax, and he continued to pet him and kept his voice even. “What about you? I thought you had put your roots down in Halfworld.”

Rocket shook his head, longer than necessary to communicate the negative. Then he sat still for another long beat, head down, before finally answering, “Lylla’s dead.”

Tears came into Peter’s eyes almost instantaneously. There was no justice at all in a universe that was still finding new ways to make Rocket suffer. He dropped his hand to the bed, put the other around Rocket, and leaned in close enough for their foreheads to touch. “My God, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“S’alright. I’m alright,” said Rocket, although he had scooted closer and was speaking into Peter’s chest. He sniffled a little and then pulled back, pawing at his eyes. “Nothin’ happened, not really. She was almost as old as me, but without the...y’know, and she said she wouldn’t want her life prolonged anyway. There ain’t much of a Halfworld left. Few soldiers still hangin’ on. They don’t need me.”

There was little else to say about it at the moment. Peter knew he would hear more as they continued to catch each other up; there was no reason to prod Rocket before he was ready. Letting his heart lead the way, Peter kept his arms around him and murmured truths about how much he had done for Halfworld and Lylla, how lucky they had been to know him, how the Guardians were lucky too, and Peter most of all. 

Groot came to the door, Lockheed perched on his hand. It was a bittersweet sight: Peter had already said goodbye to Kitty, but he wasn’t getting out of here without paying his respects to her dragon. “You two made friends, huh?” he said to Groot.

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah,” said Rocket. “After that, we’re ready to launch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyrics are from "Dirty World" by the Traveling Wilburys. Eventually I have to post the full track list from Rocket's mix tape, but this is the best one anyway. Best Roquill song ever, in fact. Seriously, go check it out.


	11. Someday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place shortly after Chapter 2 (i.e., very early in the relationship). PWP.

It had been harder for Rocket to think, since the change. At first he thought it was just the absence of his cybernetics and all the pain and inconvenience they had caused, putting him into a default state of such novel comfort that it was almost like a drug. But there were other sensations, too, less relaxing and more like a yearning for something he couldn’t quite identify. He wanted to ask Quill about it, but he also had the feeling he should be blaming Quill for it.

To clear his mind he took extra shifts flying, so he was in the pilot’s seat one afternoon when he heard Quill coming into the cockpit, hatch closing behind him. Before Rocket could say anything, Quill was behind him and his hands had latched together across his chest. “What’s shakin’, crabby puppy?”

Being touched like this was confusing as all hell. Not so long ago, Rocket would have made sure both hands came away bloody, and had no regrets. Now he thought maybe he liked it, but how would Quill have known he would like it? Or was he just trying random things to see how Rocket would react? To buy some time to think about it, Rocket ignored the touch and replied, “I’m flyin’ the ship and I ain’t a puppy.”

Quill reached over him and tapped a few controls, putting the ship into autopilot. “Not anymore you’re not. Crabby raccoon.”

Rocket swatted at the offending hand, too late. He had been about to shift out of manual and leave the cockpit anyway, but it was the principle of the thing. He twisted halfway around, baring his teeth. “Do you want me to bite you?”

“I want you to do so much more than bite me.” That shameless humanoid didn’t move any part of his body out of danger, and a second later Rocket realized with a shock that he was actually nibbling on his ear.

There was only one explanation. “Quill,” he demanded, “are you flirting with me?”

“Yeah, hello. Was wondering how obvious I would have to be to get that through your thick skull.”

Rocket hesitated. The first time they had fooled around had been experimental. The second time was at Rocket’s own request, and, to be honest, was also experimental, but the way Quill had been talking at the end of it, he expected there to be more of the same coming in the future. Rocket hadn’t dispelled the idea -- okay, he had actively encouraged it -- but if there was a third time, and if Quill was the one initiating it...something was going to change between them. Rocket wasn’t sure he was ready for another change. 

He jerked his head away from Quill’s lips, his ear flicking rapidly. “Didn’t think you were that desperate, is all.”

A derisive scoff came from overhead. “Desperate? Trust me, I haven’t lost it. I could get any man, woman, or furry creature I wanted.”

“So go get one.”

“That’s what I’m doing, dipshit.” He crooked a finger under Rocket’s throat and began stroking it gently.

It felt good, and it was against all of Rocket’s rules. He took a breath to steady himself. “I really am gonna bite you.”

“If you don’t I’m gonna spread the word that you can’t follow through on your threats.” Now Quill had four fingers combing through the fur on Rocket’s cheek. “Get off your ass and set the record straight, you psycho gremlin.”

“God I hate you, Quill. Come around where I can see you.”

And then there he was, crouching in front of the seat, looking roguish and cocky and...excited. Rocket resolutely maintained his skepticism. “You really want to…?”

Quill rolled his eyes, shoulders moving in sync, but he was smiling broadly. “You’re such a wad,” he said, and went in for the kiss.

Rocket was kissing back before he had a chance to consider how to play this. When Quill’s lips were this close, he couldn’t control the need to get a taste of his tongue, and that was another thing that just didn’t make sense about the new sensations. Why should having a pair of testes change the way he felt about the taste of Quill’s tongue?

It didn’t matter. Quill had both hands cupped around his head, and they were both pressing harder and harder, to the point that Rocket had to pull free before his canine punctured Quill’s face. 

“Can I carry you into the bedroom?” Quill breathed. 

Rocket hadn’t thought that far, but his cock had woken up and was straining against his jumpsuit, and he didn’t think he wanted to experience the danger of getting caught in the act just yet. “No,” he said firmly, and jumped down from the seat to head for the hatch.

Quill followed, unfazed. “Someday can I carry you into the bedroom?”

“Don’t count on it.” _Someday?_ There was a ‘someday’ to this, now? Why would he want to do that, anyway? Humans were so weird.

As soon as the door to Quill’s bedroom was closed behind them, he let Quill sweep him off his feet and lay him down on the bed. It took a moment to register that he had just let someone pick him up and put him down again, like some kind of pet or toy or child, and then he froze, wondering if he should leave right now. 

Quill noticed, it seemed, and stopped a few inches in front of Rocket’s face instead of resuming the deep kiss from the cockpit. “What is it?”

“How do you people deal with gettin’ these kinds of feelin’s? Whenever we start with this, I, I lose my head. I can’t trust myself.”

He was still lying on his back, and he still had an erection tenting his jumpsuit, and he felt stupid. Not scared, just stupid. But Quill had turned serious, even grave, and he sat down slowly beside Rocket and brushed his knuckles against his cheek with utmost tenderness. “Can you trust me?”

Rocket considered, and it turned out he could. He began to take off his jumpsuit, but when Quill took over, he allowed it and kept still to watch, marveling at how even that felt good. Before the change, he had never thought of Quill’s hands as especially gentle. He had never thought he had any use for gentle hands either, though.

Quill was pulling his own shirt up, and when it was covering his head, Rocket leaned forward and grabbed it. There was something satisfying about giving the shirt a good yank and seeing a bare-chested Quill come out the other end, like the way a gun came together when he snapped the last few pieces into place. “Are you checkin’ me out?” Quill said with a smirk. “It’s okay, you can admit it if you’re checkin’ me out.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Rocket propped himself up on an elbow and rubbed a hand between his legs. He was getting used to the way it felt to have so much more going on there, but this was only the third time he had actually tried using his remodeled cock for pleasure. It didn’t seem to function the same way as other body parts. Rather than just bringing it out of its sheath, he had to stimulate it until it wanted to come out on its own, and here he was, ascribing desires to it as if there was an actual distinct mind in there.

Quill added his own fingers to the action, causing Rocket’s cock to stiffen all at once, and the shock of it made his jaws snap closed on Quill’s arm. He released it immediately, relieved to see that his teeth had left no more than indentations. “Sorry. Reflex.”

“You did say you were gonna bite me,” Quill replied, half-smiling. He didn’t even jerk back, just kept kneading Rocket’s crotch. “Maybe try it somewhere else. I’m sensitive on my neck, y’know. And around here.” He sat back a little and pointed out the area over the waistline of his jeans, now unbuttoned and riding low.

Rocket pawed lightly at the open zipper. “Take those off.”

Grinning widely, Quill complied, and he was fully nude when he brought both knees back onto the bed and settled back onto his heels, stroking an erection that seemed almost impossibly large to Rocket. What did Quill _really_ want to do with that monster? What was he used to doing with it? Rocket tried to figure out if it would fit into his ass, then wondered why he had wondered. He was sure he didn’t want that, and he was sure Quill wouldn’t try to change his mind. So why was the thought of it so exhilarating…?

Quill steadied himself with a hand on the bed, and Rocket tried a nip on the skin of his side, as he had suggested. “Mm,” said Quill, and then, “Harder.”

Rocket bit harder, and Quill’s yelp in response was glorious. He pushed a hand through Rocket’s belly fur, spread his fingers to let the fur slide between, and then, quite suddenly, he stopped and said, “Whoa.”

“What?” Rocket was confused. He hadn’t even bitten him again yet.

“You have nipples!” Quill brushed the fur backward and revealed a tiny pink knob, then explored further and found another.

Rocket flattened his ears. “‘Course I have nipples, you idiot. So do you.” He reached up and pinched one hard to prove the point.

“Yeah, but you have more!” Quill sounded genuinely excited. “How do they feel? Is this doing anything for you?” He was scraping his thumbnail against one, rubbing a fingertip on another.

“Mostly it just feels like...oh. Huh.” Rocket’s attention went to the top right of his belly. He brushed his own fur back to get a better look. “That one’s new. Sort of. It was always scar tissue there, before.” He looked on the other side; the scarring had been symmetrical. “Yeah. Here too. Got the full set back. I didn’t even know I was supposed to have six.”

Quill rubbed his thumb tenderly over each spot, as if he thought they still somehow hurt. Then he did something Rocket would never have seen coming: he took his left hand, turned it facing up, and kissed the palm. 

Rocket made the kind of animalistic whine he usually tried to avoid at all costs. “Shit, Quill,” he stammered. “That felt really good.”

Quill raised an eyebrow in surprise, but he didn’t hesitate before repeating the gesture on Rocket’s right hand. This time he let the tip of his tongue out, and Rocket felt like he was about to lose his mind.  
He needed his hands occupied, couldn’t go on another second without something else on the bare underside of his hands. Quill’s cock was conveniently close, and the moans he made when Rocket grabbed him there were just the icing on the slick, soft texture of his skin against Rocket’s palms.

Quill pushed Rocket back and began sliding his shaft up and down his body in slow, deliberate repeated motions. He alternated between manipulating Rocket’s cock to toying with each of his hands again, then stroked his face while staring into his eyes. That part felt especially odd. Quill looked so pensive, so unlike his carefree public manner. He looked like he was here for more than having fun.

Overwhelmed, Rocket closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, letting himself simply enjoy the feeling of Quill’s oversized cock plowing a line up to his chest. 

“Can I come on you?” asked Quill.

Rocket’s eyes snapped open. “No!” 

“Someday can I come on you?”

Again with the ‘someday’. And what a jerk, to ask something like that. Rocket thought about having that sticky mess all over his fur, having to take a shower to get rid of it, getting all waterlogged from the shower and then drying off and getting all fluffy from taking too many showers. Quill never had to deal with anything like that. Quill just did whatever he felt like…

...Except that was a lie, wasn’t it? He had kissed Rocket’s left hand because he felt like it, maybe, but he had kissed the right one because Rocket said it felt good. There was no doubt about that. And he would do it again. Whether or not Rocket even had the nerve to ask for it, Quill knew he liked it now, and he would do it again.  
“Maybe,” said Rocket. “Maybe someday.”


	12. A Good Night's Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their way home to the other Guardians after reuniting, Peter and Rocket talk about what they went through without each other on Earth and Halfworld. Their relationship needs to be reinvented...for a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of angst in this one, some of it plotty (if you're even following the plot), but all of it ultimately hopeful. There's a little bit of smut after the page break.
> 
> Oh, and I haven't proofread. Please let me know if you see any glaring errors.

At first there was no discussion about where they stood with each other. There were too many other topics to cover: the first night, Peter and Rocket sat together on Peter’s bed and talked until they both fell asleep. Groot sat across the bunk and was still there when Peter woke up holding Rocket close to his chest. Rocket and Groot had their own bunk on the ship that they had been sharing before picking Peter up, but the next night, all three of them returned to the same configuration in Peter’s bunk, and kept it up for as long as they were on the Kree spacecraft.

Peter knew that he wouldn’t get over Kitty right away, and that he shouldn’t. Their relationship had been something real, a lifesaver in some ways but never just a tool to keep Peter content and busy while he was stuck on Earth. He wasn’t interested in replacing her with Rocket any more than he had been in replacing Rocket with her.

Anyway, Rocket was clearly still grieving for Lylla, no matter how many times he said he was okay. The full story from Halfworld came out before they had reunited with any other Guardians, and the more that Peter heard, the more his heart broke. 

Aside from Rocket himself, all of the uplifted animals in the community had come from the same place, the laboratory that the Guardians had shut down to liberate them. Some of the scientists in charge there had connections to the ones responsible for the original Halfworld Experiments, so the resulting modifications were similar in many cases, but Rocket had always stood apart. He had already been his own person for years, while they had spent their entire lives in the lab, and that was to say nothing of his immortality. 

“We all went through the same shit,” Rocket told Peter over the makeshift breakfast table in the battleship. “But I don’t got the marks of it on me anymore. They acted like, y’know, I oughta be over it by now, and I could teach ‘em all how to get by, how to put the past behind. Made sense to me too, that’s why I stayed.”

“But?” Peter asked softly.

Rocket’s voice sounded thick. “But I ain’t over it. I can’t forget. I kept tellin’ ‘em it would get easier, ‘cos I didn’t know how to say it wouldn’t.”

Peter reached across the table to wrap his hand around Rocket’s. “Hey. I know it still hurts, but you’ve changed so much since we met, do you really mean it’s never gotten any easier?”

“Not on my own it hasn’t. What was I s’posed to do, give every Halfworlder a Groot of their own? Invite ‘em all to join the Guardians?”

It was a struggle to understand, and even to find the point where he should stop struggling and accept that there were some things he would never understand. “You had each other,” he pointed out. “When we talked that one time, you called them your family. Remember?”

Rocket shook his head. “I said _they_ were a family. I wasn’t part of it.” He dragged his hand out of Peter’s, grasping his finger first to show that he wasn’t trying to get away from him. The food was already gone, but Rocket took a long drink from his cup of water as if it were alcohol. “They mostly all paired off,” he reminisced. “Tried to be husbands and wives to each other. Talked about the next generation.”

Peter blinked. “The next...what, seriously?”

“Not all of us got fixed, y’know. Thing is, there was a lot of different base species used. Most of the couples could fuck, but there was only one that was fertile.” He looked troubled, eyes pointed down at the table. “They had a litter before I left. Six kits. Healthy. Animals.”

The word wasn’t an insult coming from Rocket, but its full implications were clear. “They didn’t inherit their parents’ intelligence,” Peter stated. 

Rocket nodded. “So that’s gonna be the next generation. Buncha dumb bunnies jumpin’ around a ghost town.”

“Geez. That’s...I don’t know, man, that’s rough. What did the parents think?”

“They were happy. They had their babies. They’ll prob’ly do it again.” He still seemed vaguely unsettled about the whole idea, but not horrified. There was no real standard of normality for someone like him, Peter supposed, so there was no reason for him to expect any particular reaction to a pair of fellow cyborgs who had managed to reproduce. 

The Halfworld tale stayed simmering in Peter’s mind all day, through his video calls with Gamora and Kraglin, through Groot’s version of everything he had missed, through his exploration of the battleship. Rocket stayed nearby, sometimes imparting valuable information, sometimes chattering contentedly, sometimes saying nothing at all. Peter had so many questions that he didn’t know where to start. Everything seemed to come up as it was needed, even the silence, but the exceptions were the questions about Rocket himself. How badly had he been damaged by the separation? Was he hiding something? And what should he and Peter be looking for in each other now?

When Peter finally found the question to ask, though, and the nerve to ask it, he had no designs about rekindling the old romance. There had been signs of pain in what Rocket hadn’t said about the Halfworld community, and Peter had to know. “You said most of you...paired off,” he began tentatively. They were both in the cockpit, Rocket having just shown him around the controls. “Does that include you and Lylla?”

The only sign of surprise from Rocket was his ears flicking, and that just once before he answered. “Don’t tell me you want details.”

“No. No, of course not, it’s personal.” Peter rubbed a hand over his face, hoping to at least obscure his expression for a moment. “It’s just, I know how it hurts to lose someone. But it’s a different kind of hurt when you’re in, you know, a different kind of relationship.”

“I loved her,” said Rocket plainly. “She loved me. We lived together. Slept together. In both senses, if that’s what the diggin’s about. Same as you and Kitty.”

It didn’t hurt in the way he had expected. He didn’t feel the need to explain himself like he had expected, either. He nodded. “You always told me I should get a girlfriend, remember? I never realized, but maybe you were just taking your own advice. Maybe that’s what you needed.”

There was a long pause. Rocket stared at the control panel, brushing a hand over it once without actually activating anything. Finally he said, “Sex with her never really did much for me. Honestly, I don’t think she got much out of it either. She just wanted it ‘cos it was what real people wanted. Same with the rest of ‘em. They wanted to get back whatever it was the makers took from us, but they were all just playin’ a part. Tryin’ to be somethin’ we all shoulda known we weren’t.”

For maybe the fourth time that day, Peter felt his eyes tearing up. The reunion had overloaded him, and everything since then had just amped up some emotion or other so that a little kept spilling over before he checked it. “Does that mean...I’m sorry, this is selfish, but...does it mean you won’t look for another relationship now she’s gone? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, you’re grieving, I shouldn’t…” He slowed himself down with a few breaths. “We can keep separate bunks if you want. Make everything look normal if you want to have company. And, I mean. If you want to go off on your own again, I, you know, I won’t stop you.”

Rocket didn’t look up. “No. I can’t live without you.” The words came as a simple statement of fact, and after a moment, he gave Peter a confused expression as if he didn’t understand what had rendered him speechless. “What?”

Peter clenched his jaw. He wanted to reach for Rocket, but their seats were too far apart to touch, unless he were to stand up and loom over him. “Why did you leave me?” he choked out. “I wanted you to stay but you wouldn’t. Why?”

Before answering, Rocket ran his hands over his face a few times, as he did when grooming. Peter had learned long ago that it wasn’t a sign that he wasn’t paying attention or didn’t want to make eye contact, just that he had to gather his thoughts. Sure enough, when he spoke again his voice was heartfelt, but unwavering. “You ever really thought about what it means, havin’ someone who can’t live without you? You think it’s some kinda prize you got for bein’ good to me?” He shook his head. “It’s a set o’ manacles is what it is. It’s a whole world o’ new ways we can hurt each other. I didn’t want to do that to you.”

“But it’s the same for me,” Peter protested. “I need you too.”

“No it ain’t the same. Pete, ya know how this works. If you die, I get cut off from the Light and I’m gone too. If I die, all ya gotta do is be sad about it for a little while.” He bared his teeth slightly, a warning against Peter’s impending interruption. “And don’t tell me you didn’t handle yourself just fine while I was gone. Missin’ someone ain’t the same as...as…”

Somewhere between hurt and chagrined, Peter risked getting another warning to ask, “As what? What was it for you?”

Rocket looked straight at him, then down at the floor. “It was hell,” he said quietly. “I never got a good night’s sleep, the whole time. Couldn’t put my guard down no matter how hard I tried. Barely ever laughed. I dunno what Lylla even saw in me.”

“Same thing I did, Rocky. Lylla wasn’t a fool.” Peter tried not to show how hard he had just been affected by Rocket’s confessions. Maybe he was right. Peter had lain awake some nights missing him, but he had found happiness, too, and mostly it was in ways that were closed to someone like Rocket. “I wish you had told me what you were going through.”

“I wanted to. Had my comm in my hand, I don’t know how many times, ready to tell ya I couldn’t hack it an’ I needed a pickup. Or just to talk. But I knew if you knew I needed you, you would come. No matter what it cost you. Right?”

“Right,” Peter replied, drawing out the word. Was that supposed to be a bad thing?

Rocket nodded reflectively. “I’d owe you for that.”

“No you wouldn’t. I’d be doing it because I wanted to.”

“You let me into the Guardians ‘cos you wanted to. You saved my life ‘cos you wanted to. You started takin’ me to bed ‘cos you wanted to. An’ all along, I’m always thinkin’, how am I s’posed to make you keep wanting to?” He gave Peter a brief, piteous glance. “Maybe that ain’t the same as owin’ you, but it don’t end up feelin’ that different.”

Peter frowned. He had never thought about their relationship that way, but maybe that was the point. He tried to go back to the beginning and see it from Rocket’s point of view, but all he could say was, “All I wanted was for you to want to. You always gave back same as you got from me.”

“What if I didn’t? Couldn’t?” Rocket didn’t pause long enough for Peter to try to answer. “I ain’t stupid, I knew you liked the sex. I figured I coulda kept it goin’ indefinitely if I just kept ya happy in the sack, but…”

“But that’s not who we are.” Peter dropped his face into his hand. “And you tried to see if we could make it without sex, and I lost my shit because you were breaking up with me.”

Rocket’s answer was in his gentlest tone. “Yeah.”

Peter finally stood up and moved in front of Rocket’s seat, bending his knees and holding out his arms so Rocket could tip forward into them and get scooped up. Peter took over his place on the seat, with Rocket settled sideways on his lap. “From now on,” said Peter, close to his ear, “the only thing we owe each other is our trust. I’m telling you right now I want you by my side even if you think you don’t have anything to give.”

Rocket laid his chin on Peter’s shoulder, absently nuzzling his neck. “Even without fucking, you mean?”

“ _Fuck_ fucking,” Peter replied with heartfelt vehemence.

“A’right,” Rocket chuckled, his breath warm on Peter’s skin. “I trust you.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

**TWENTY YEARS LATER**

The last notes of the song played through the Quadrant’s speakers, and a few seconds later came the click of the tape ending. Nobody reacted, at first, but then Mantis stood up and began clearing away the empty glasses and blowing out candles, and one by one everyone else seemed to come out of the stupor. “I’m going to sleep,” Nebula announced.

“Ya gonna be alright?” Kraglin asked her.

She gave him one of her timelessly potent glares. “This isn’t the first time I’ve lost someone,” she informed him before stalking out of the room.

Peter wanted to stop her, to say that this was different, this was Gamora, they were all hurting so much and they knew it was worst for her sister, but over time he had learned when Nebula needed immediate support, and this was not one of those moments. 

He looked down at Rocket, pressed close to his side, and got a nod from him. They had spent the day crying all over each other while still trying to keep an eye on everyone else, and there was nowhere to go from here but to rest. Drax came over and held out a hand to help Peter up, and he accepted it and then turned around to pick up Rocket. Big Groot rumbled something wordless and wise at them as he trudged past, a Baby Groot nestled in each of his arms and already snoozing away.

“Do your people have any customs for this part, Drax?” Peter asked as he and Drax and Rocket walked together, down the corridor where both rooms were located. “After the funeral, after the fireworks and stories and drinking, what do you do?”

“You keep living,” Drax answered, just as they stopped at his bunk door. “Goodnight, Peter. Goodnight Rocket.”

Peter felt almost dizzy with relief when they entered their own bunk and his head hit his pillow, but he didn’t fall asleep quickly, nor had he expected to. He rolled onto his side and found Rocket with his hand, then began to pet him in long, even strokes. “Nebula’s going to want revenge,” he mused.

Rocket responded in the same low tone. “Can’t get revenge on a chain explosion. She saved them people on the ships, though. She knew what she was doin’.”

“I know. I don’t know if we’ll ever convince Nebula, but I think this is how Gamora would have wanted to go.” He sighed bitterly, increasing the pressure on Rocket’s fur. “She missed Lars. Part of me can’t stop thinking if that’s why she wanted to be the one to--”

“Shut up,” said Rocket. “Stop it, Pete. Lars is gone. Gamora’s gone. This is gonna keep happening, and you an’ me, we gotta--”

Peter swallowed. “Keep living,” he finished, and he could feel Rocket nodding under his hand.

The unfairness of it all was still eating at him, though. He thought he had come to terms with the reality of outliving most of his family, but he had wanted all of them to die of old age. Gamora should have had decades of life remaining, and to lose her so soon after they had lost Lars…

He had been fighting himself about it for a few sleepless minutes when Rocket turned around, rolled back his head, and licked Peter’s face. It was instantly calming: Rocket would often give him some kind of drowsy affectionate touch when they were in bed, and it always helped him drift off. This time, though, instead of stopping after one quick kiss on the cheek or neck, Rocket licked across Peter’s mouth and kept going until his lips parted.

“Oh,” said Peter. It had been years since he had engaged in anything sexual with anyone, and many more since he and Rocket had done more than sleep and cuddle in this bed. He had to deliberately adjust to the idea before considering if he was interested, and if he was correctly reading the signs from Rocket.

He didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. Neither of them did. Rocket confirmed what he was looking for by sliding his hips forward until Peter could feel his erection, and that was enough to make Peter decide he wanted it too, if he could only remember the moves. He cupped his hand under Rocket’s jaw to kiss him back, then touched between his legs just for a second before hooking his thumbs under his own boxers to peel them off. Rocket, who had no clothes of his own to deal with, climbed onto his chest before he could remove his t-shirt, so he left it as it was and focused on running his hands down both sides of Rocket’s body.

Back when this used to be habitual, they would talk to each other a lot during the act; Peter’s memories of it were all set to his own litany of encouragement and praise, or the seemingly hundreds of different inflections that Rocket could give the words “Oh yeah,” each with its own distinct meaning. Now, the only sound from either of them was their breathing, and Peter felt like a clumsy knockoff of the sex god he had once considered himself. He was turned on, but it was taking some time to manifest.

Rocket wasn’t having the same problem, apparently. He clutched a double handful of Peter’s shirt and knelt upright over his cock, sliding back and forth on it until it was fully hard. Peter let go of his concerns about getting it right and gave himself to the moment. Rocket was damp and hot on his belly, riding him with a measured rhythm that was more comforting than intense. There was just enough light in the room to see that Rocket was staring down at him, but when he closed his eyes it was no less clear that there was love in that gaze. 

The love had always been there, and the sex didn’t change that any more than Gamora’s death had. Peter didn’t understand what had made Rocket choose to change their relationship now, back to what it once had been, but he was grateful, and his arms were open to whatever should come next. They were going to keep living.


	13. Gentle Giant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has a nightmare and now Rocket has to comfort him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was asking for Roquill prompts on Tumblr, just one of them turned into something that fit into this AU, so I kept building on it and just now finished. (The others are all posted under the title "Tickle the Raccoon".)
> 
> If you're new to this series or need a refresher, I recommend reading chapters 3 and 4 ("The Prisoner" and "Access Granted") before this one. It's set some time after those, but uses the mythology and character development established in them. 
> 
> There's no reference to _Infinity War._

Rocket was fully awake before he knew what had disturbed him, but in another instant he realized that Peter’s arms, which had been wrapped around him when he fell asleep, were now clutched tightly to his own chest, and his entire body was spasming. Strangled groans tried to escape his lips as his eyelids squeezed shut and then fluttered rapidly.

“Pete,” Rocket rasped, touching Peter’s face. His own fear was taking hold of his heart; Peter had suffered a few bad dreams before, but nothing this extreme. Usually he was the one comforting Rocket through his night terrors. “Pete!” Rocket repeated, louder. He rolled Peter onto his back and perched on his chest. “Wake up! Don’t do this, dammit. Wake up!”

“Mmughh?” Peter’s eyes shot open. Panting heavily, he pushed himself back against his pillows and caught Rocket in a quick, tight hug. “Oh thank God.”

Rocket moved to the side when Peter released him, but he kept his body in close contact. “Are you okay?” 

Peter was nodding, but with his head drooping and his hand covering his face, so it wasn’t altogether convincing. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, and then groped blindly around the bedside table. Knowing he was probably going for the lamp, Rocket got the switch and closed his eyes against the initial glow -- he didn’t like light in the nighttime and never needed it, but for some reason, being able to see seemed to reassure Peter.

“Thanks,” Peter grunted, then coughed. There was a canteen of water on the table too, and he took it and drank deeply, and when he spoke again, the hoarseness was gone from his voice. “Rocket, I have to tell you something.”

“That sounds dire,” said Rocket warily, wondering if Peter would notice that his hackles were already up. They told each other everything. If this was something that Peter thought he needed to preface with a statement like that...was there a breakup speech coming? He hadn’t sensed anything wrong between them, but he didn’t really know how relationships were supposed to work.

Peter didn’t seem to be thinking about that, though. He stared at nothing for a moment, then capped the canteen and set it aside, wiping his mouth with his bare arm. “I can still remember how it felt when Ego showed me Eternity. Only it wasn’t a feeling, it was just the truth. Too much truth. I could handle it because I had my Celestial side switched on, but otherwise, y’know, it would have just wrecked me.”

Rocket leaned his head against his Star-Lord’s shoulder. “And that’s what you were dreamin’ about?”

“Sort of. It was more like I was outside myself watching what would have happened if I hadn’t snapped out of it. Nothing would have ever wrecked me. I would’ve just wrecked everything else. The whole damn galaxy we’re supposed to be saving. Terra.” He swallowed hard and looked at Rocket. “You.”

“You didn’t,” Rocket reminded him, holding back a sniffle.

“No,” Peter agreed. He began to pet him as he spoke, something that Rocket had learned he did to calm himself and not just to make Rocket feel good. It felt good anyway, though. “But the thing is...and I tried, I swear I tried to not even think about it...I’m pretty sure I could access it again. I could put myself into that state that Ego put me in.”

It wasn’t a breakup speech, but Rocket understood now why it was such a big deal for Peter to say it. Taking into account all that they knew about his Celestial heritage, it wasn’t impossible that he was right about what he could do: his powers were different, and much more limited, but as Mantis had explained to them, he was essentially the new Ego. He was a Celestial contained in an immortal human form rather than a planet, and his humanity was in control because he wanted it to be. 

He was also right to be afraid. “Pete,” Rocket started tentatively, “you can’t just accidentally turn into a universe-eater. You gave up Eternity once already. You’re you.”

“Yeah, but…” He exhaled, and he gave Rocket another firm squeeze before returning to stroking him normally. “Sometimes I remember seeing it, or I have these dreams, and...it just gnaws at me, and I start thinking, it wouldn’t do any harm just to take one more look. See what’s out there. Know all the truth again, even if I had to lose it again.”

Rocket shivered. “You think you could do that? Make it temporary?”

“No,” said Peter. “I really don’t.”

“You’re you,” Rocket repeated helplessly. “It was just a dream. It won’t happen, not ever.”

Peter was gazing at him with love, but there was sadness in it too, a troubling kind of resignation. “Yeah, you’re right. I had to get it off my chest, but it’s nothing, really.” He flicked the light off and lay back down. “Sorry I woke you.”

He fell asleep again, peacefully enough. Rocket could feel his even breathing, but he couldn’t emulate it. He stayed awake for a long time, afraid of what dreams would come for him.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

The day after the nightmare, Peter found himself wishing that he hadn’t told Rocket about it. At the time, it had felt necessary, just a little bit of honest confession so he could get the support he needed from the one closest to him. But now, in the light of day, he saw the concern in Rocket’s eyes and wondered if the real reason he had described his dream, and the internal struggle that went with it, was no more than his own selfishness. Surely he didn’t need to burden Rocket with this, when he had so much trauma of his own to deal with.

He meant to bring it up again at bedtime, just to assure him again that there was nothing to worry about, but after dinner Rocket went off on his own and Peter didn’t want to invade his privacy. When he was ready to go to sleep himself, he decided that the talk could happen later, unless he found Rocket awake.

Before he reached the bunk he and Rocket shared, though, he found Mantis instead, or rather, Mantis found him. Coming down this particular corridor toward him, there was nowhere else she could have been but his bunk. That was odd, but she didn’t let him ask any questions before saying, “Rocket would like you to enter his mind tonight.”

Peter blinked. It had been a long time since Mantis had used her empathy powers, in tandem with the connection the Light had made between Peter and Rocket, to arrange a meeting within Rocket’s subconscious. Every time she had done it before, it was after all three of them had discussed it and agreed that it was the right strategy: it had always been for the sake of addressing Rocket’s issues, and they knew that it couldn’t be taken lightly.

“He is sleeping in your bed now. He told me to tell you to come and join him, and I will send you to sleep and form the connection.” She stood up straight, hands folded demurely in front of her, but with no sign of fear or anxiety. If she wasn’t Mantis, he reflected, he might have to wonder if it was okay to take her word about Rocket’s consent instead of getting it directly from him, but there was no chance that she would ever lie to them. Not about this. 

“Did he say why he wants to?” Peter asked, but he continued toward his bunk and motioned her to walk with him.

She nodded. “He will explain.”

That was questionable, if he was already asleep. Rocket couldn’t always even talk when Peter found him in his subconscious, let alone explicate on anything going on in the real world. He didn’t take it up with Mantis, though, just opened up the hatch to his room and stepped in with her right behind him.

Rocket was a lump in the blankets, no more than his nose and one ear visible on the pillow. Peter watched the gentle rise and fall of his breath for a moment, and an almost painful surge of tenderness went through him. “Is he okay?” he whispered to Mantis. “You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” she responded, just as quietly. “Lie down beside him. You will not wake him.”

“Can I, uh…” Peter chuckled, and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t really want to get up and take my pants off in the middle of the night. I know you’re not into watching hot guys strip, so…”

Mantis turned a 180º with a little squeak, and Peter undressed quickly and slipped under the covers with Rocket. “Okay,” he said, settling himself around the furry little body. “Ready for unconsciousness.”

With the tap of her fingertip on his forehead, everything melted away, and he was in a different world.

It had been the same thing every time: he and Mantis were standing in an open field, near a large structure which represented Rocket’s mind. The first time it had been a prison; the second, a computer. Now it was a forest, but the trees were all of a height, just as tall as the even row of them was long, and Peter could see that beyond that row, they were growing in a huge square. It was another cube, but a cube of nature this time, and that seemed hopeful somehow.

“I am going to leave,” Mantis announced. “I have considered it, and I do not believe I need to be here. Call if you need me.”

“Wait, really?” Peter frowned. Nothing had ever gone wrong in here, but he was sure it could, and he had no idea _how_ it could, which was the scary part. “What if we get trapped or something and we can’t wake up?”

“Then I will wake you up,” said Mantis, not sparing him at all from the tone that suggested he was being rather dense. “No harm will come to you or to Rocket. Good luck.” She turned to walk away. He didn’t know where she was going, but he glanced away from her at the forest, and when he looked again, she was gone.

He sighed and checked his pocket for a phone. It was there, of course. He could get what he wanted here by imagining it, so there really wasn’t anything left to go over with Mantis until he needed his extraction. 

As he headed toward the forest he began to feel more animated. These sessions were emotionally exhausting, but he liked being here. There was always something new to discover about Rocket, and maybe himself too. When he stepped into the shade of the canopy, he barely paused for a look around before calling out, “Rocket?”

There was no immediate answer, but Peter noticed a dirt path at his feet, so he followed it. The air was fresh and summery, and he could hear birdsong and running water -- altogether a much more inviting atmosphere than Rocket’s subconscious had ever produced before. The path took a few twists and turns, bringing him into the heart of the quiet green wood, and when he called out again for Rocket, someone emerged from behind the foliage.

Peter would have recognized him in any form, but this one took him aback. He was still a raccoon, still bipedal, the same as his real body in almost every way but one: he stood as tall as Peter did. Taller, even; as they came to each other, Peter found himself looking up to meet Rocket’s eyes. “Wow,” he breathed. 

“No kiddin’,” Rocket replied. His voice sounded the same, too. “How’d you get so puny?”

Peter laughed, but when he thought about it, there was nothing nearby that could give them a good sense of scale. Maybe it really was him that had changed size. Something seemed a little different about Rocket’s build, though. Maybe his stance was a little more upright, his shoulders a little more squared. His clothing was definitely more typically human, Terran even, than his standard jumpsuit, although his feet were still bare. He looked...natural. As if this were simply the body he had grown up with, and he was used to it.

The thought of a young, growing Rocket made him smile. “The first time I came here…” He hesitated. “Rocket, do you understand what’s going on?”

“Yeah. Near enough, anyway.” The oversized raccoon shifted his weight and brushed his knuckles against Peter’s heart. “‘S’okay. You can tell me anything. I ain’t gonna remember it, though.”

That was expected, if a little sad. “The first time we did this,” Peter began again, “you were a baby. This big. And I held you in my hands and I promised you I would never let anyone hurt you.” He shut his eyes against the threat of tears, which had come without warning.

“What next?” Rocket’s hand was on his shoulder, and he was speaking in a calm, steady voice. “Peter. What was I the next time?”

Peter opened his eyes to stare at the ground as he thought. “Um, a computer. You were a big computer, and I programmed you with...happy stuff. Pictures of the Guardians and shit.” He placed a hand absently over Rocket’s to hold it there. “The third time, well, you were Yondu. We talked. Mostly about him. It was rough, but I think we made a kind of peace.”

“Yeah,” Rocket said after a contemplative pause. “Sounds about right. Here, sit down. Looks like we’re gonna be here awhile.”

There was a fallen tree beside them, although Peter was sure it hadn’t been there a moment ago, and he found it a more comfortable seat than any log in the real world. Rocket sat next to him and didn’t comment when Peter took one of his hands into his lap to trace the lines of his palm and examine his claws, which looked quite dangerous in their new size. Curiosity satisfied, Peter left his hand clasped in Rocket’s, appreciating the novelty of it. “So, I don’t know how much about the real world sticks with you. Maybe you don’t remember anything specific right now. But Mantis told me you wanted me to come here...any idea why?”

“Huh.” Rocket cocked his head, then gave a slow nod. “Yeah, I don’t really remember. But I figure I musta needed to talk to you and this was the best way.” He peered sideways at Peter. “I, uh, can’t lie. Not here. Don’t think you can either. And it’s easier, y’know? Not rememberin’ specifics ain’t so bad. Everything just kinda...is.”

Peter grunted his agreement. “Like how you’re the big strong one right now, and it’s making me reevaluate our entire relationship?” At a questioning look from Rocket, he clarified, “Not in a bad way. I just feel like, I don’t know, like I still wouldn’t let anything hurt you, but it’s a moot point, since nothing could. And sort of like you’d be the one protecting _me._ It’s nice, actually.”

“I would, y’know,” Rocket offered. “Even if you were still the big strong one. But I know what you’re gettin’ at. I think that’s what we had to talk about.”

“Oh yeah?”

Rocket stood up and paced in front of him, hands locked behind his back. “So I was a kit? Tiny baby critter? Helpless and all that?”

Peter frowned. “It doesn’t mean I think you’re helpless…”

“No, but I was. This is _my_ head. You came in here and you saw what was goin’ on and you protected me. And then you came back to comfort me.” He took a deep breath, the movement of it more visible than usual in his human-sized chest. “And then you came back again, and you forgave me. It’s all been you givin’ me whatever I need.”

“Isn’t that the entire point?” The question was out before it had fully formed in his mind, and it wasn’t rhetorical. He was convinced that Rocket was right that neither of them could tell lies while they were here, but now he was wondering if there was more to it than that. He couldn’t even seem to skirt around a topic; he just had to say everything directly. “I mean, I want to give you what you need, this is just a way to find out what it is.”

“Yeah,” said Rocket, head slightly tilted as if he were analyzing something. “But what do you need?”

Peter groped for an answer. Before he had met the Guardians, he had always been wanting one thing or another, wanting it so bad that he wouldn’t have hesitated to call it a need. Now he knew himself better, and his reflex was to say that all he needed was his people, but that just brought him in a circle. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m happy if you’re happy.”

In a low husky voice, Rocket said, “There’s somethin’ I gotta show you.” He took a step closer to the log, looming for a moment before he removed his jacket and then dropped down to one knee, facing away from Peter. Then his shirt came off too, pulled over his bowed head, and he laid it on the log with the jacket and stayed crouched there.

“Oh my God,” Peter whispered. Rocket’s back was hairless and laced with surgical scars, as it had been when they met. It was even worse, actually. The external hardware was more prominent, and the skin around it in some places was red and swollen. Dried blood dotted his spine. Peter reached out a hand, but couldn’t find anywhere safe to touch him. “But you were healed,” he protested softly. “I healed you with the Light and all this was gone.”

“It’s still gonna be gone when we wake up.” Rocket straightened up and sat down with him again on the log, although he didn’t put his shirt back on. His chest was dark-furred and broad, the muscles more clearly defined than they were in his regular form. “This is all just symbolic shit, remember? Point is, you can’t heal everything. No matter how happy you make me, it don’t change where I came from. And some o’ that’s always gonna hurt.”

Peter’s throat tightened. He looked away to respond, “So what am I supposed to do? How can I just ignore it if I know you’re in pain?”

“‘Cos I can handle it.” Rocket took his hand with a grip as firm as his voice. “Peter. I can live with what I got. I’m used to it. I’m good at it. And I’m not a baby.” He sighed and moved his hand up to Peter’s face, his claws trailing through his hair. “What you do, it helps. But it’s you and me together that keep me up. That’s how it oughta be, both ways.”

Something dawned on Peter as he struggled with this new proposal. “I had a nightmare. I woke you up and I told you about it, but then I tried to brush it off. I didn’t want to scare you.”

It seemed to be a revelation for Rocket, too. “Ohhh. Now we’re gettin’ down to it. See, that’s just dumb, not wanting to scare me.” He kept his hand cupping Peter’s face, and gazed at him eye-to-eye, nothing but his long muzzle between them. “I can take it. You hear me? Put a little pressure on, I ain’t gonna collapse. You’re a tough dude, Pete, but you need some support sometimes. Just like me.”

Peter leaned in, letting his cheek brush against Rocket’s fur. He was still processing these new ideas of mutual support, but his heart felt at home, and even with the strange new dimensions of his body, Rocket was Rocket. Peter laid a hand on his thigh and murmured, “Can we make love here?”

Rocket snorted a laugh and took both hands back so he could gesture at himself. “You into this?”

“Well, I’ll be honest, I’m glad it’s not permanent. But I wouldn’t mind finding out what we can get up to with it.” He tried to consider any potential consequences, remembered Mantis, and then remembered that this time she hadn’t stayed within the environment. “I mean, if we’re having this conversation, you’re self-aware enough to make an informed decision, right?”

“Still tryin’ to take care of me, huh?” asked Rocket with a fond smile.

“Always.”

“Nope.” Without warning, Rocket got to his feet and wrapped his arms around Peter’s chest to pull him up along with him. “This time I’m gonna take care o’ you,” he announced, spinning around before he set Peter back down on his own feet.

Peter staggered. “Dude. You are _crazy_ strong!”

Rocket steadied him with a hand on each of his biceps, which just emphasized his easy power. “I know!” he beamed. “It’s pretty much up for grabs here. You can try it too.”

For a second, Peter was about to take that suggestion and play around with what he could do or who he could be in this limitless place. Then he paused and shrugged. “No, not this time. Go ahead and take care of me.”

A huge bed appeared behind Rocket, so suddenly that Peter wasn’t sure which of them had called it into existence. A brief inspection, though, showed it must have come from Rocket’s mind: Peter wouldn’t have thought to make it hover, or drape it with so many luxuriant furs. He grinned, but there was some anxiety creeping in, too. This would be a lot of firsts for them, all at once, and he had to ease into the idea of Rocket being in such a different body. 

To calm himself he stroked his knuckles down the densely furred chest and danced his fingers along the waistband of Rocket’s jeans. “Bet you’re hung like a beast,” he remarked, looking up and raising an eyebrow to show it intrigued him rather than concerned him.

Rocket’s tongue flicked out and touched him on each eyelid, light and playful and yet another thing that felt totally different from when he did it in the real world. He went on to nuzzle Peter’s neck, licked him there too, wrapped his arms around him, and picked him up to toss him facedown on the bed.

It was unlike anything Peter had ever experienced. Rocket used the malleable environment and his own mastery of it to full effect: clothing was torn to shreds, or just vanished when he didn’t want it. The light and the temperature around them changed to accentuate every sensation. Rocket’s cock was just as big as Peter had anticipated, but he didn’t even pause to lubricate, just pushed right in and caused no pain doing it. “You’re mine,” he whispered into Peter’s ear, his chest pressing warm and heavy against his back. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

When they were both spent, they broke apart and lay on their backs, side by side, on sheets that had stayed magically clean and dry. Noticing that led Peter into a much less welcome thought, and he groaned aloud. “Are we having wet dreams? It’s gonna be so nasty if we wake up and our real bodies have been doing it too.”

Rocket laughed. “Don’t think so but I ain’t gonna wake up just to check.”

Peter didn’t want to wake up either. He rolled onto his side and snuggled close to Rocket. “You want to go again? Bet we’ve got infinite stamina.”

“Yeah.” Rocket threw an arm over him and tried to kiss him the way he usually did, which didn’t work out so well in this size: opening his mouth at all made it seem like he was trying to eat Peter’s entire face and might very well succeed. “Hit me with all your fantasies, Stud-Lord. Might never happen like this again, y’know.”

“Man, you’re right. Next time you’ll probably be a T-Rex or a Pac-Man or a whisper in the wind or something. I’m gonna need another ten hours here, at least. Hope there’s some time compression going on.”

Rocket rubbed a hand down Peter’s torso and slid it around to cup his ass. “I think we just fall asleep here and our real bodies wake up when they got enough rest,” he said dismissively. “Forget that and just tell me how you want it.”

Peter locked his fingers behind Rocket’s neck and gazed up into his brandy-colored eyes. “I want it however you want it. I never realized you could be like this. It’s awesome.”

“Like what? Possessive?”

“Gentle.” He kissed Rocket’s closed mouth. “Does it feel the same way for you when I’m the big one? Do I make you feel protected? Loved?”

Rocket shivered slightly, as if overcome. “Yeah. You do.”

Peter could feel his cock getting hard against his thigh, and he was just as ready as Rocket for less talk and more action, but there was something he had to bring up before he lost himself to it. “There is this one fantasy I have. In real life, you know...I tell you that I love you, but you never say it back to me.”

“Yes I do,” said Rocket, jerking back in surprise, but then closing the distance again with a lick to Peter’s cheek. “I do all the time. You gotta learn to listen, Peter.”

It wasn’t exactly the answer that he wanted; metaphors had their use, but Peter wanted to hear the words. He had to accept this, though. He found a smile and said softly, “Okay. I’ll try.”

This time, Rocket kept him on his back and touched him all over with those smooth and sensitive hands of his. They spoke little, but maintained eye contact almost the entire time, until Rocket threw his head back and came hard with an echoing growl, all his sharp teeth bared. Ten sharp claws pierced Peter’s chest, and he came too, decorating both his own flesh and Rocket’s fur with a glistening spatter.

The drops of blood and the cum disappeared at the same time, as Rocket pulled out and crouched beside him. “I shouldn’ta done that,” he said, guilt filling his voice. “Shit can still hurt even if it doesn’t leave a mark.”

“Don’t be like that,” Peter chided him, stroking his face. He was already feeling sated and drowsy, and he wondered how much longer he would last. “Feels good to get a little pain now and then.”

“Yeah, but I’m too big, and if I ain’t careful--”

Peter sat upright and rapidly grabbed Rocket by the shoulders. “Baby. No. Listen to me. I can handle it.” Everything that had happened since last night’s bad dream suddenly made its own kind of sense. “I’m gonna tell you if you hurt me. I’m gonna tell you what I need from you. And you and me together, we can handle anything. Right?”

Rocket gave him a lopsided smile and then slouched into him so that they fell into a mutual hug. “Right. Yeah. You and me.” He laid him carefully back down on the pillow. “So...was that the thing we had to talk about?”

“Probably, but don’t fade away or anything like that.” Peter reached between Rocket’s legs, tickled his balls, and then caught his huge fluffy tail and drew it out. “I didn’t say I ran out of fantasies.”


	14. Blame the Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While scoping out a new home for their Grootborn children, Peter and Rocket have a mutual reaction to something in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only story in this series set later than this one is the original one-shot, "Keep the Light On". As explained in that one, Peter and Rocket have, for reasons, been immortal for a few centuries. They’ve been in an exclusive relationship for most of that time, but due to their altered physiology, “not in the mood” can sometimes last for decades at a time, and they’re both okay with that. 
> 
> The other Guardians are all long dead, but Groot has reproduced steadily so now there are a handful of young trees (offscreen for now) in Peter and Rocket’s care, and they’re looking for a suitable planet to raise them.

There was an intense peacefulness to the forest, and Peter had to ask himself how peacefulness could be intense. He had an urge to take Rocket’s hand and frolic through the flowers with him. “I feel a little weird,” he said, “like sleepy, but not. You?”

Rocket kept tramping forward, his ears leaning back. “I feel incredibly horny,” he groused. 

“Oh! Is that what this is?” It all made sense now. Intense peacefulness. “Geez, when was the last time we…?”

“I dunno, fifteen years? Sixteen. Quit distractin’ me.”

Peter fell silent, figuring Rocket was right and they shouldn’t distract each other, but now that the topic of sex had come up, his mind knew where it wanted to settle. The last few times that he and Rocket had made love, Peter vaguely recalled, he had been the one initiating, and he had realized on his own at the time that it was more about cuddling than orgasm, so they had just switched to cuddling. Sixteen years ago, apparently.

They slowed down to inspect a cave in their path. It was more like a tunnel, really; Peter could walk inside without ducking, and daylight was visible at the other end. “Should we go around?” he asked anyway. “We still don’t know for sure if the wildlife roster includes any big predators.” Rocket was a kind of predator too, though not a big one. That was part of what made him so sexy. The cuddling was just as good these days as ever, but he thought he was ready to get back to the orgasms. 

“Nah, we should check it out from inside,” Rocket replied, drawing a flashlight out of his pack. “If there’s anything in there, better we know about it.”

There wasn’t much inside, but it was a nice little cave, dry and comfortably cool. Peter imagined heaping some rushes on the ground and sleeping in here with Rocket pressed close to his bare chest. He sighed and tried to look at what was relevant. “No tracks, no scat. I don’t think there are even Orloni here.”

Rocket nodded absently, shining his light into a few corners and then pocketing it. “That’s a good sign for the Groots.”

“If we can find food sources for them, yeah.” Peter tried to walk on and found himself held back; Rocket had grabbed onto his belt while he wasn’t looking. “What?” he asked, but Rocket wasn’t bothering with talk. His hands went to Peter’s hips and pushed him back against the cave wall using the formidable strength in his deceptively small body, and then those hands were working at his fly, moving fast, aided by a set of sharp teeth tearing at his belt. Rocket’s pack had already thudded to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Peter managed to ask through gritted teeth.

“What’s it look like?” The pants were still up, so far, but open enough for Rocket to reach his entire arm into them and feel around between his legs.

Considering the spontaneity employed here, that really wasn’t enough of an answer, but Peter couldn’t remember the words to ask any other questions. “Rocket,” he attempted gamely, interrupting himself with a gasp, “Later…”

“No, can’t wait,” Rocket replied, and there was a piteous whine in his tone, like he really had tried to wait but couldn’t hack it. He yanked down Peter’s boxers to reveal his cock, already mostly hard. 

It was an easy surrender. Peter spread his legs far apart, braced back against the cool stone, and planted his hand between Rocket’s ears. “Yeah,” he crooned. “Yeah baby, you’re so good to me. Just like that.”

Rocket had his mouth around the head, sucking rhythmically, and he was augmenting it with both hands, as he always did. Peter closed his eyes. He had meant to stay alert and keep watch for whatever dangers lurked here, but in the last few seconds he had stopped believing that anything dangerous or bad or evil existed in the entire universe. Whatever was going on in Rocket’s head, it was clearly the result of some flash of brilliance.

“Nnnghn...Rocket....Rocket!” His hand crunched into a fist around Rocket’s ear, then opened again to furiously stroke the raccoon’s face while more and more of his length went into his jaws. For a moment Peter thought he might get bitten, but he accepted as an inevitability that even that wouldn’t make him withdraw. “Baby, I’m gonna come.”

That had always been Rocket’s signal to steer clear, since he was fastidious about his fur and turned off by the taste of semen. This time proved no exception, although he did hold on until the very last second, as if determined to keep the blowjob going as long as he possibly could. He kept both hands on Peter’s cock, aiming it over his shoulder as he breathed heavily and pushed his head into Peter’s hand. After three long spurts had landed on the ground behind him, he resumed his position and licked Peter clean with businesslike efficiency. 

Then he turned away, rubbed his hands over his face, and gave himself a good shake. Without saying a word, he was back to walking the trail.

Peter hurriedly tucked his dick away and zipped up. In a few long strides he had caught up to Rocket, and was trying to find the words to inquire about why that had just happened. It seemed like a stupid question no matter how he phrased it, considering that the only other option would have been that it didn’t happen. There wasn’t really a good reason to not get a surprise suck-off while exploring a new planet, was there?

One thing that did bother him, though, was that he hadn’t been given a chance to return the favor. Maybe Rocket didn’t want one at the moment, but what if did and he was just trying not to be needy? Anyway, Peter wanted to give him one. It had been too long since he had tasted Rocket’s dick. He also wanted some cuddle time. Making him continue to walk immediately after coming so hard wasn’t fair. He looked down at Rocket, whose whiskers were twitching even as his gaze remained straight forward. “Can I carry you for a little while?” Peter asked.

Rocket acquiesced willingly, yet another sign that something strange was going on with him. It was so nice to hold him, though. His head was resting on Peter’s shoulder, and he could feel his fur, warm against his neck. 

They walked under a few trees that way, and Rocket began to make some upward glances until finally he slipped out of Peter’s arms, braced against his shoulder, and leaped up to grab an overhanging branch. He was unzipping his jumpsuit, and Peter didn’t hesitate a second before reaching out to steady him on a part of the branch that put his genitals at the same level as Peter’s mouth.

Peter opened eagerly for him and blindly guided his limbs into a better position, one foot on each of his shoulders, Rocket’s back against the branch, his arms hugging Peter’s head. It was intoxicating to be intimate with him again, from the scent of his fur, to his claws combing through Peter’s hair, to the perfect shape of his cock sliding in and out, in and out while Peter caressed it with his tongue.

Rocket had a few whispered words of passion at first, but then his speech faded into heavy breathing, punctuated by a few tender licks at Peter’s scalp. It was taking longer to get him to his climax than it had the other way around, which was fine by Peter, who was enjoying himself too much to want it to end. He hummed a little, twirled Rocket’s tail, tried and failed to look up. The sounds coming from above him were purely animalistic, which he loved: Rocket had always been careful about who heard him chitter or purr, but he didn’t try to contain it with Peter. When he came, it was with a drawn-out mew, and he clutched at handfuls of hair until Peter lowered him carefully to hug against his chest and then sink down to his knees.

“Let’s rest here a minute,” Peter suggested, leaning back against the tree and stretching his legs out. Rocket nodded weakly, content to stay in Peter’s lap without even bothering to zip his clothes back up.

The cuddling hadn’t lost anything for being preceded by orgasms. Peter kept up a steady stroking, and Rocket bumped his head gently against Peter’s chest and kneaded his clothes, and they stayed like that for a long interval before Peter ventured to speak again. “It’s not like I didn’t want that, and I love you like mad, but I really think we should talk about why we’re acting like this all of a sudden.”

Rocket’s eyes remained closed as he answered, “Somethin’s in the air. I can smell it. It’s comin’ off the trees, like pollen.”

“When were you gonna mention this?” said Peter with a start.

Rocket yawned. “Now, I guess?”

Reluctantly, but still lacking any real drive to hurry, Peter shifted Rocket off of his lap and reached for the gear they had dropped. “Okay, here’s what we do, we go back to the ship right now--”

“--And fuck each other’s brains out,” Rocket finished for him. He was getting to his feet and pulling himself together, but there wasn’t any hint of a question in his voice.

Peter stood up and blinked at his partner a few times, then echoed, “Fuck each other’s brains out. And then come up with a plan.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

On his back in the bed he shared with Rocket on their current ship, Peter ejacuated onto his chest with a breathless groan. There was nothing but a small dribble, but he was surprised to have even that much left. His hand fell off of his dick, and he left it hanging down on the side of the bed, and Rocket pulled out of him and collapsed forward over his thigh.

Peter just barely managed to reach down far enough to lay one lazy hand on his head. “I don’t know if it’s out of my system or if I’m just too exhausted to go again,” he confessed.

“Uh huh,” Rocket grunted in response. “I can’t feel it anymore. Long as we stay sealed up in here I think we’re good.” He yawned. “But I’m spent too. Save the ‘plan’ part of the plan for tomorrow.”

“You seriously want to go to bed sticky?” It had been a while since that question had to be discussed, and Peter wasn’t sure yet where he fell on it. Getting out of bed right now sounded like torture, but so did waking up with Rocket plastered to his skin. 

Rocket flicked an ear at him. “I got us into this mess. You get us out.”

Fair enough. Peter had already been tearing his clothes off when it struck him that they didn’t have any lube, but Rocket had been unfazed: apparently, the machine on the ship used for storing, combining, and cooking food also had a function for making household products. Rocket had keyed in the code for lubricant and saved the day.

Hyping up the drama with a piteous moan, Peter heaved himself upright. “I’m gonna take one for the team here, but only because I’m the most caring and selfless husband in the galaxy, and I expect you to back me up on that next time I ask.” He trudged his way into the bathroom to the sound of Rocket’s cynical laughter. ‘Husband’ was one of their longest running jokes.

Peter wiped himself down and then returned to the bed with hot towels, using them on Rocket directly instead of handing them over. He cursed when one came away with a spot of blood. “You didn’t tell me you were hurt.”

Rocket barely looked up. “Didn’t know. Don’t worry ‘bout it if you’re too sleepy.”

“No, I got it.” As if he’d be able to sleep knowing he had caused damage without fixing it. He placed both of his hands on Rocket’s lower body and let the Light flow into it, just a minimal touch of the cosmic power he controlled. 

In seconds, Rocket yawned and stretched as if newly awakened. Peter knew from experience that in a way, he really was. A healing with the Light came with extra energy. 

Having stood up and refreshed himself, Peter felt more awake too. Enough to settle back into bed to talk instead of sleep, anyway. He lay on his back and slid his arm under Rocket to pull him onto his chest, close enough to scratch his ruff and plant kisses on his head. “Guess we gotta keep looking for a home for the Groots,” he said.

“Maybe not too far,” came the unexpected reply. “It’s just one forest on a whole big planet.” Rocket draped an arm over Peter’s chest, although it only reached halfway across. “Anyways, if it comes from trees it ain’t gonna affect ‘em same as it does us. We could analyze it, see if it’s safe.”

Peter snorted. “So what if it is? Every time we come visit them, we kick it off with a two-man orgy?”

“Yeah, yeah. Please won’t someone think o’ the children. We’ll check out the other hemisphere tomorrow, so just shut up and enjoy your lucky day.”

It really had shaped up as a marvellous day, but following that thought led Peter into darker territory. “What would have happened if we were here with someone we didn’t like instead of each other?”

Rocket stopped driving his skull into Peter’s hand long enough for a brief moment of eye contact. “Better not to go there, Pete.” He exhaled, sending a cold ripple over Peter’s skin. “But I don’t think it woulda been the same. We had a choice. Same one we always have, just with more incentive on one side.”

“Well, next time we have that choice, we’ll be on the hemisphere without the incentive.”

“Don’t mean it ain’t gonna be a good time.”

Peter smiled broadly before leaning in for another kiss. “So, we’re lovers again?”

A small noise came out of Rocket’s throat that sounded both contented and questioning. “Yeah...yeah I think we are.”

“Good.”

Rocket flexed his hand-paw, giving Peter a light scratch. “If you missed fuckin’, you coulda said so.”

“I know,” Peter acknowledged. They were always open with each other about their respective sex drives, whether or not they currently matched. “But there’s other stuff I miss when we’re platonic. I like flirting with you. I like getting jealous when you talk to other people. I like plotting out in advance how I’m going to make you come.”

Rocket’s body was shaking with silent laughter before Peter had finished talking, but all he said was, “But you like when I make you come too, right?”

Peter gave him a squeeze. “Damn right I do. That thing you did with your feet tonight was fucking inspired. Where did you learn that?”

“From you,” Rocket responded instantly, sotto voce. “Obviously. I learned everything from you.”

How long had it been since Peter had been the one teaching Rocket something? Longer than the sixteen-year gap they had just closed, at least. It was strange to think of himself as the knowledgeable one, even though he was fairly sure that sex was the only thing he had ever mastered before Rocket did. 

If he concentrated, though, he did remember Rocket as the shy one. The uncertain one, inexperienced, full of emotional issues, sometimes angry for no discernable reason. Their early relationship had been fraught with misunderstandings and false starts...and Peter had held it together, bull-rushing through barricades of insecurity until Rocket was ready to take them down himself. 

At some point, Peter must have needed to turn the tables and lean on him. The circumstances were gone from his memory now, but all that mattered was that Rocket had been ready for it. “Look how far we’ve come…” Peter murmured.

Rocket sounded half asleep, his voice impeded by Peter’s chest against his muzzle. “Dunno about that. It’s always some damn trees dictatin’ our lives.”

“Sure,” Peter agreed with a yawn, “but there was a time you never would have admitted that you learned anything from me.” He closed his eyes, grinning. “God, I love trees.”

There was a soft, rustling laugh. “Yeah,” said Rocket. “I love trees too.”


	15. Soft Rocket, Warm Rocket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't let the title fool you; this one is _super_ angsty and includes a flashback to Rocket's past as a lab experiment. Happy ending though!
> 
> It's set somewhere in the earlier days of his relationship with Peter. Sex is implied but not shown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got the Halfworld Discord to thank for this chapter, too - both the initial inspiration for it, and the discussion that helped me decide to set it within "Legacy" instead of keeping it as a stand-alone.

Deep in the night, Rocket found a side to Peter that didn’t show up in the daylight: an appreciation for the things he usually avoided, like quiet and stillness. Like his own little bunk on the Milano, which he and Rocket had taken for a few days to be alone together, now that they had decided on what they wanted from each other. Rocket appreciated those things too. Right now he was satiated and limp, clad only in his fur, lying lengthwise on Peter’s bare chest with his head nestled into the curve of Peter’s neck.

To make it even better, Peter was petting him, slow and even and continuous. Rocket felt something else, too - a rumbling sensation, spreading rhythmically through him from where their bodies met. It was pleasant, and vaguely familiar, like a machine running in good order.

All of a sudden his head jerked up, and the rumbling ended at once. It had been coming from him alone, not from Peter and not from anything between them. He pushed himself up on his hands and looked down into Peter’s face. “Did you hear that?” 

Peter’s voice was sleepy and wry. “That purring sound?” 

“Yeah,” said Rocket. “What was that?”

“I think it was you purring.” His smile would have been audible in his voice even if it couldn’t be seen on his face. 

It should have been okay. Rocket didn’t know why it wasn’t okay, but he was agitated now, and had to roll to the side instead of settling back down. “Ain’t that great,” he muttered cynically.

Peter shifted back a little and scratched Rocket’s head the way he liked. “I think it is. Why did you stop?”

Rocket laid his ears back. “Why did I _start?_ ” 

“Because you were happy,” Peter answered, sounding a little plaintive. “Right?”

Right. Purring meant happy. Natural reaction to being held with love. If you were an animal, anyway. This wasn’t anything to get angry with Peter about, but it wasn’t anything to celebrate, either. Rocket felt disgusted with himself. He had tried to be Peter’s lover, not his cat. “What do you know about it, anyway?” he snapped.

Peter released a sigh. “Dude, do we need to talk about this? I never wanted you to be human, you know that.”  
“Yeah, makes two of us. That’s got nothin’ to do with it. You like purrin’ so much, go hump the engine.”

He stretched an arm to the floor to grab his jumpsuit, but before he could put it on Peter touched his hand, and that made him pause long enough to hear the softly-spoken question that hit him right where he lived: “Rocket...was that the first time you’ve ever purred?”

Rocket’s hand shot out instinctively and grabbed Peter’s finger, and Peter just sat there and let his claws dig into the skin. It took a few long moments for the onslaught of memories to subside enough for Rocket to answer: “No. Second.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

When the makers talked to each other, he listened carefully for anything he could learn from their conversation, but he knew better than to interrupt. When they talked to him, it was different: they expected a response under any conditions.

The one who talked to him the most was simultaneously the kindest and the most frightening of all of them. He was here now, standing before the operating table, speaking with careful precision: “After the procedure, you can choose a treat. Do you understand? You can choose a marshmallow, or cheese, or a piece of bacon. You can have any kind of treat you want.”

Thirteen was strapped down so that he couldn’t move his head, but he could open his mouth enough to lick his dry lips. And to respond. He was getting better at talking out loud like the makers did. He knew more words than he knew treats. “Touch?” he said. “Pet?”

The man drew back slightly in surprise. “You want me to pet you? As your reward?”

Even without any signs of anger from him, Thirteen felt nervous. He was allowed to ask for things, but usually that only meant the things that he would have been given anyway. Bringing up something unexpected was risky, even though he had been asked to choose, and he did know what reward he wanted. “Yes.”

“Okay,” said the kind maker, earnestly locking eyes with him and holding up one finger. “After the operation, I’ll pet you for one minute. Do you understand?”

He asked that question a lot. He always required a verbal answer for it. “Yes.”

Apparently, even after that they weren’t done. “But if you’re good,” the kind maker continued, now holding up a second finger, “I’ll pet you for _two_ minutes. Do you understand?”

Thirteen had to think. He did understand: two minutes was twice as long. The conditions confused him, though. There was a pause. Then, “How be good?”

“Stay quiet. Don’t squirm. Do you know what squirm means?”

“Yes. To move.” It was a difficult order. He didn’t know if he could stop himself from moving, except as far as the restraints already prevented it. But then, he had never really tried. “Understand. Be good, get treat.”

The kind maker replied absently as he straightened up, preoccupied now with things outside of Thirteen’s line of sight. “That’s right.” 

Another of the makers, already clad in that outfit that Thirteen hated with the mask and gloves, came over to talk. “Are you really getting somewhere with that?”

Without bothering to lower his voice or move away, the first one began talking about Thirteen right over his head. “Don’t know yet, but did you hear what it said just now? I offered it a reward for good behavior and it chose petting instead of food. Remind me to have Sindi log that.”

“You’re rewarding it, huh?” said the other through his white paper mask. Thirteen could just barely remember the moment he had first realized that there was a mouth under there and that that was where the voice came from. It had been a long time ago, or it felt like it. He had learned much more since then.

“Helps with cognitive development. We can’t upload everything.” The kind maker turned and looked down at Thirteen. “And you know what a pain in the ass it is when we’re trying to get it prepped for an operation. Punishment wasn’t working.”

Thirteen knew that they didn’t care whether he understood their conversation, and weren’t interested in his reaction. He squeezed his eyes shut anyway. The punishment hadn’t worked because nothing scared him more than being prepped for an operation, but it had still hurt, and he didn’t want to think about it. “Be good,” he whispered to himself. “Get treat.” Maybe it would be better this time. 

One of the makers laughed suddenly: he had heard. “That’s right. So you are learning. Good boy.” He went to put his mask and gloves on. “Let’s get started.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

“We’re done, Thirteen. The procedure is over. Do you understand?”

He did understand, but he couldn’t answer. His mouth could open, with great difficulty, but his breaths were coming too hard to find words between them. The fur on his face was wet all over, for some reason, and he was afraid to open his eyes.

“Thirteen,” said the voice again, mild but firm. “Tell me how you feel.”

“Hurts,” gasped Thirteen, surprising himself by managing to get it out.

The voice spoke to someone or something up at its own level. “Subject responsive. Verbal abilities retained.” Then it was in front of Thirteen again. “It’s normal for it to hurt a little. The operation was a success, and you’re all done now.”

Thirteen inhaled through his nose, and finally cracked his eyes open. Everything was blurry, but he recognized the humanoid shape in front of him, and he remembered how he had gotten here and the hopes that he had been clinging to. “Reward?” he asked faintly. “Two minutes pet?”

“Yes, you’ll get your reward now. But it’s one minute, not two. Two minutes was if you behaved yourself during the procedure.”

The dampness on his face was renewed with a sudden rush of heat coming from his eyes. “Behaved…”

One of the man’s gloves had come off, and his bare hand was on Thirteen’s head. “No, you made noise and you struggled. It’s okay, you can try again next time.” He was stroking, stroking, smoothing down the fur from between Thirteen’s eyes down to the loop around his neck that secured him to the table. It felt good, like being transported into someone else’s life for just a moment. It felt like not being alone.

He closed his eyes again, so that he wouldn’t see the kind maker looking at the sixty seconds ticking down on the wall clock. So that he wouldn’t try to see it himself. How much longer did he have? How many more times would he feel that big hand sweep down his neck? His chest was vibrating against the metal surface beneath him, and even that felt right, so he knew that it was a reaction to being caressed and not something that the surgery had done to him. He wanted to keep feeling it, to let his body have an automatic reaction for once that wasn’t screaming or struggling.

“Time’s up,” the kind maker remarked, removing his hand. He raised his voice: “Sindi, take a note? This is the second time its eyes have teared up during a procedure. And I believe just now it was purring, but only while I was touching it.”

“No stop,” Thirteen whimpered. “Still hurts.”

“One minute,” said the kind maker. “Just like we agreed. But you’re going back to your cage now, and I think we can give you something to help you sleep. Do you understand?”

The pain was back, the tears were back, the purring was gone, and he was going to sleep alone in his cage. “Yes.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Peter didn’t talk until Rocket was done with the story, even though it was told haltingly and out of order and with unexplained references to things that Peter surely wouldn’t understand. He listened, he offered an occasional prompt, and he cursed under his breath at the worst parts, but he left a silence of nearly five minutes before he actually answered with words of his own. “So...purring reminds you of that time?”

It was easier to talk again now that Peter had been given a turn. They were still on the bed, but they had both gotten dressed in spite of the late hour, and Rocket felt like he had regained some control over himself. “I guess. Yeah. Dunno why that part of it should be the thing that matters, though. There were plenty of times after that where they did all the same stuff.”

“Including the...petting?” Peter’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “That same reward system?”

Rocket gave a humorless laugh. “Didn’t really work out the way they wanted. Next time, he told me he would only pet me if I behaved. I tried. Tried the next few times too. Couldn’t do it, so I didn’t get any rewards, so I didn’t...make that sound. By the time he touched me like that again, I understood too much for it to feel good.”

Peter nodded slowly. “It’s kind of like they polluted your instincts...shook up what’s natural. Feeling good makes you feel bad.”

That was true enough to make Rocket snap to attention, though his eyes were unfocused, his mind turned inward. Peter wasn’t trying to pet him anymore, and he couldn’t really blame him. “It wasn’t you, y’know. It’s okay when you touch me.”

Almost instantly, Peter’s hand stretched out to fondle his ears. “Yeah, you used to get jumpy about it, but you’re over the worst of that, huh?” It was amazing how easily he could talk about it. “Except I guess we found your limit. But it was still me the whole time, so the question is, what changed when you started purring?”

Just trying to ponder that question made Rocket want to panic. Something was different, very different, about the way that Peter touched him and the way that the makers had, but to figure out what it was, he had to remember things he had fought hard to forget. “It ain’t really none of your business,” he muttered.

“Nope,” Peter proclaimed, making it sound like an unabashed challenge. “But I still wanna know.”

Rocket jerked away from his hand. “Forget it. You’re not my shrink. Who even cares.”

“You obviously have something on your mind. Just tell me.”

“No.”

“Rocket. I’m trying to help.”

The more sure he felt that Peter was right, the harder it was to concentrate, or decide what to do about it. All Rocket knew was that he couldn’t obey. Doing what he was told was a disaster every time. He crouched and showed Peter his teeth; let him analyze _that_. “Then what, huh? I play along and I get a cookie? What are you gonna do if I don’t want your d’ast cookie?” Tears were coming to his eyes, the hallmark of one more failed attempt to sound tough. He couldn’t even keep his voice from cracking when he added, “Fuck you, Quill.”

That should have been more than enough to chase him off, but Peter just looked at him, blinking, like he was contemplating something that didn’t even bother him. “Nothing,” he said, with precise annunciation.

Rocket didn’t have a response ready for that. “Huh?”

“If you don’t play along, I’m not going to do anything. You’re not getting punished. Or sent away. I won’t even stop petting you unless you want me to. And, I gotta say, I don’t have any rewards for you either. I mean, there’s a bag of marshmallows in the mess I thought we could break into later, but they’re half yours whether I decide you deserve them or not.” He shrugged. “That’s just...how it is.”

Rocket’s heart rate began slowing down to normal. The formless fears that had been crowding out his rational mind took shape: Peter could have hurt him so much worse than any scientist ever had. Rocket would have done anything, no matter how much he hated it, to keep Peter and the Guardians in his life, but instead he was getting them for free. 

That was the difference. He had purred when he was touched in the lab, but he paid dearly for it. If hours of torture had bought him sixty seconds of comfort at the hands of an enemy, what could be the cost of a lifetime of contentment in the arms of someone who loved him?

“I dunno if I’m ever gonna purr again,” said Rocket apologetically, because it was easier than actually apologizing. 

Peter smiled. “Well, fortunately, I was already in love with you before that entered the equation.”

“Do you want me to, though?” For some reason, it seemed important to know.

“Yeah, I do. I like when you’re happy. Plus it sounds cool, and the vibration is nice to fall asleep to. My only real regret here is that I can’t purr back at you.”

It occurred to Rocket that he would, in fact, like to hear Peter purr, and that maybe it was for all the same reasons. It was also okay with him that it would never happen. “You sleepy now? I kinda am.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Peter reached behind himself to pull his shirt off.

Rocket began unzipping his jumpsuit, then stopped. “Wait. First I want to eat some of them marshmallows.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “ _And_ I want you to pet me. And don’t stop until one of us falls asleep.”

Peter hooked him into a one-armed hug and kissed his forehead. “What if I say no?” he teased.

“You won’t.” Rocket’s voice shrank into his faintest whisper. “Thanks.”


End file.
